


boy next door

by a_mess



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Exy (All For The Game), Andrew just doesnt want to interact with anyone, M/M, Neighbors AU, Neil just wants to antagonize everyone, Neils still a runaway, both of their cannon backgrounds are the same, but everythings solved, exy doesnt exist, its good I promise, neighbors to lovers, neil and andrew are neighbors, sir and king are in it, tags will be added as I add chapters, theyre gonna bond over smoking antagonizing their co-op board pres and some shared truths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-24
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:53:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 34,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27694430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_mess/pseuds/a_mess
Summary: “I’m Neil,” he says next, undeterred by Andrew’s prior lack of responses. Neil pauses a few seconds and evidently must come to the albeit correct conclusion that Andrew will not reply unless prompted to and continues with “and you are?”“Not friendly,” Andrew replies. He takes the very last drag of his cigarette and puts it out on the windowsill before tossing it in the small trash can he keeps in the corner for the explicit purpose of throwing away empty cigarette cartons and butts....“No,” Neil agrees, smirking and looking down as if this is some sort of private joke Andrew let him in on. He watches Neil cough out a little laugh, and feels something akin to hatred bloom in his chest again. Neil looks back up at him, and his smile widens. “Neighborly, then.”_____________Neil moves into the apartment next to Andrew's.
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 72
Kudos: 389





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CaptainOptimism](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainOptimism/gifts).



> Hello and welcome.
> 
> I read every neighbors au for them that I could find in like two days and then promptly decided I had to write my own to make up for the lack of content left LOL 
> 
> I hope you enjoy! I don't know how many chapters it will be yet, but only because I have all my ideas written out and just don't know how long they will be when put together so I haven't given numbers. 
> 
> Manda, if you're reading this I love that you let me talk about these boys enough that you now love them too. Thanks for hyping me up amidst the spiral bro. 
> 
> Give comments or kudos if you enjoy :)

The moment Andrew saw the flyer sitting in his mailbox along with all his other bills and notices, he was equally abhorred and pleased. He detested the idea of getting a new neighbor and having to deal with their first few inevitable encounters before they learned Andrew didn’t typically play nice with others, but he was pleased to have another flyer; King loved it when he crumbled them up and threw them on the floor for him to kick around with his little paw. It was more so pleasure at having something else to entertain the cat rather than subject himself to doing that job himself and less so at the thought of his cat being excited over a piece of paper. Trust him, King was plenty fucking spoiled. 

Andrew looked at the flyer just long enough to gather the name and apartment number of the new resident in his building before crumbling it into the perfect balled shape and continuing on to the elevator bay. 

**Neil Josten**

**Apartment 526**

The co-op board of Andrew’s apartment building worked to foster ideals of “community and friendship” among it’s residents, or at least that’s what they had told Andrew when he’d moved in almost 3 years ago. If it weren’t so hard to find animal-friendly apartments in his area Andrew would’ve ripped up his lease right there, but just because the building managers hosted gatherings and events in the name of friendship didn’t mean Andrew had to actively attend or participate in any of it. And he made it clear that he never would. 

Claire Walker, the president of the co-op board and the guinness world record winner for “most likely to passive-aggressively-laugh-someone-into-committing-suicide” (probably) was very serious about making a welcoming environment for new neighbors in the building. Anytime a new tenant signed a lease, the floor they were moving onto got a flyer similar to the one Andrew just received alerting them to the arrival of their new neighbors. It felt like Claire was a mother reminding her children to be nice to the other kids on the playground, but in the tone that makes it seem like you’ve already pushed someone off the swings. 

Andrew repressed a sigh as he got off the elevator to the fifth floor and made his way to his apartment—524—already hearing the sounds of his new neighbor moving in and seeing the few boxes scattered outside the door further down the hall. 

He unlocked his door thinking about why the other free apartment—509 on the other side of the floor around the corner—wasn’t the one “Neil Josten” had been pushed to move into. Did it have to be the one right next door? Andrew was settled into a routine and was already blanching at the thought of having to show his neighbor the many knives he owned if it was disrupted. 

The building was set up in an oddly block-like shape not unlike the number “3.” There was one long hallway with apartments on either side, and then three smaller hallways branching off in the same direction, all with small little courtyards between them and windows facing directly into apartments across the way.

Andrew lived in apartment 524, the apartment in the middle branch of the “3” with a window facing the bottom most branch, where his new neighbors apartment—526—would be. The window that looked directly across to apartment 526 was the window Andrew usually secretly smoked out of. He wondered how likely this neighbor of his was to leave his curtains open. He was not willing to have to find somewhere new to smoke, and he was equally as unwilling to be kicked out of his apartment if Walker became aware he’d been smoking when it wasn’t allowed on the premises. 

Andrew tosses his keys on the counter as he shuts the door and looks around to find King. The cat glares at him as he lifts his head clearly annoyed at having been woken up from an afternoon nap, and Andrew glares directly back to show exactly how threatened he is by the fur ball. 

When King gets bored of glaring he gets up and stretches nice and long, threatening Andrew’s couch with his claws. Andrew scoffs at the animal's animosity for the extremely nice and extremely expensive scratching post and cat tree across the living room, but tosses the crumbled paper on the ground by the couch for the cat to fool around with anyway. 

King immediately leaps into action pawing the paper and then jumping when it moves in any direction closer towards himself. Andrew watches for a minute—amused, though you wouldn’t be able to tell by the bored expression that permanently remains on his face—and wonders again why he spends so much damn money on actual cat-specific items for this animal who refuses to acknowledge them in favor of crumbled pieces of paper and ruining couches. 

He turns towards the kitchen to find something to make himself for dinner when he hears an angry _mew_ and turns back towards where he last saw King. The cat is laying down and stretched out half under the couch, obviously in search of something. He comes back out from under the couch, looks at Andrew, and _mews_ again. 

The paper ball welcoming _Neil Josten_ to the building seems to be under the couch and out of the cats reach. 

“Boo-hoo,” Andrew says and turns back to preheating the oven for his dinner. 

Andrew sets out some dinner for the cat while waiting, who decides eating is better than playing with a ball of paper anyway and joins Andrew in the kitchen to eat. 

After a quiet and uneventful dinner, Andrew settles in his living room with his new book and a tub of ice cream. First, he digs the ball of paper out from under his couch and tosses it across the room for King who gratefully chases after it before making the mistake of then pushing it under the TV stand after five minutes. 

“Idiot,” Andrew says almost affectionately, “you’ve used your one retrieval.” The cat doesn’t seem to mind this time as much and settles instead for taking up the rest of the unoccupied space on the couch. 

When he’s read a good few chapters, Andrew grabs his pack of cigarettes from the table and walks towards the window. He pulls back the curtains, cracks it open, and works on removing the screen from the bottom half as he learned to do about a week into his lease. 

It’s while smoking his second cigarette that he gets a first glance of his new neighbor. Andrew had been staring for so long at the drawn curtains of his neighbors apartment that he almost didn’t notice when there was a silhouette standing right behind them. 

Taking another long drag of his cigarette, Andrew noticed what he could about his new neighbor from the form in the window. He was small but appeared pretty lean, and he was probably short like Andrew based on the way he measured up to the height of the window. 

Angry about it all over again, Andrew stubbed out the rest of his cigarette, reset his window screen, and drew his curtains with fervor. 

He kicked King off of his pillow and got ready for bed. He had a midday shift at the bookstore tomorrow and a late shift at Eden’s later in the night. Even though neither required him to be awake before 10 am, Andrew would prefer to savor every minute of sleep he could. 

He would have, too, if his neighbor didn’t apparently get up at ungodly hours of the morning. Shuffling and other signs of getting ready woke Andrew at what seemed to be an unbelievable 6 in the morning based on what his phone said. The sounds were not enough to have woken a sleeper of normal habits, but Andrew had learned at an early age to waken at the slightest of noises or movements from things much scarier than those that go bump in the night. 

The layouts of the two apartments were mirrored, so where Andrew walked into a hallway with his bedroom on the left, closet and bathroom on the right, and then a kitchen and living room plus the window down the hall into the branch of the building, New Neighbor Neil had his bedroom to the right, and so on. Meaning his bedroom shared a wall with Andrew’s, which was why whatever had Neil up at 6 in the fucking morning also had Andrew up. 

The disturbance lasted about 15 minutes before Andrew heard the door to the apartment clicking shut, shuffling down the hallway, and then even the faint ding of the elevator. Satisfied that he would no longer be bothered, Andrew rolled back over to go back to sleep. 

That is until New Neighbor Neil returned from wherever he had to be before the sun was even fully out 45 minutes later at now around 7. Listening to his neighbor get re-settled in his apartment and then evidently start unpacking, Andrew resigned the idea of falling back asleep and stared at his ceiling until King noticed he was awake and promptly meowed in a way that said _oh, you’re up; that means you can feed me._

It was then Andrew knew he was going to hate this new neighbor.

————————

Adjusting that first week was torture. Andrew now _expected_ to be woken up early in the morning by his neighbor shuffling wherever it was he went before the sun was up. After the first few days, falling and staying back asleep had gotten easier, but that didn’t mean he was pleased to be woken up at the ass-fucking-crack of dawn every morning. Especially before morning shifts at the bookstore or after night shifts at Eden’s. 

Some nights, when illegally smoking out his window and imagining ways in which he could get New Neighbor Neil to violate his lease and on Claire’s bad side, he would catch a glimpse of him in his apartment. A few times, he himself would go stand by the window—the one facing Andrew’s own—and when that happened Andrew would stub out his cigarette and retire for the night, not wanting or needing to know any more about this Neil.

Until, halfway through the second week of interrupted mornings and cigarette breaks, Andrew arrived at his window in hopes Neil wasn’t at his so he could smoke a few cigarettes and go to bed, and found himself staring in blank surprise across the way. Neil was not in his window and therefore not cutting Andrew’s cigarette break short, but there was something else that caught his eye. 

A white piece of printer paper with a message was taped to Neil’s window, completely, unavoidably across from Andrew’s. It simply said:

**What is your cat’s name?**

Andrew stared at it, unimpressed for a few minutes. On one hand, he could just ignore it. He didn’t owe the man who’d been waking him up for no reason worth giving a crap the name of his cat. It’s not like the sign could have been for any other apartment, but Andrew could care less whether or not Neil knew he ignored it on purpose. On the other, he could answer it; simple as that. Though, the thought of this accidentally coming across as friendly towards his neighbor was enough to almost deter him right there. 

Until the curtains moved slightly and Neil himself opened them to gaze out his window, immediately noticing Andrew and directing his stare at him. He held up one hand in a half-hearted wave and then pointed at his sign before looking back to Andrew.

Andrew huffed a little and took in his neighbor again for a second longer. He’d caught glimpses of him through the week, a gleam of red hair while Andrew readjusted his screen ditching his perch now that Neil arrived. Some tanned skin pushing back curtains while Andrew put his back in place. But, he’d never had the opportunity to look at his new neighbor head on, or rather had never allowed himself the chance. He stared this time, telling himself he wanted to see what this asshole looked like so he had a face to curse when he woke up at 5 in the morning now. 

He was right to assume before, his neighbor _was_ short, probably close to his own height based on how he looked next to the sill. He had reddish brown hair that curled slightly and sat on top of his head rather unkempt-ly. Andrew didn’t think he should have been able to tell the color of his eyes from this distance, but they were so blindingly strikingly blue that they could be used to guide boats away from land in the dark or land planes on airstrips. 

But none of that is what caught Andrew’s attention. What caught his attention were the scars. Neil was wearing a long sleeved t-shirt that he’d pushed slightly up his forearms, and there were dozens of thin white lines like the marks of knives going up each of his arms, and Andrew would’ve placed money on them going much further than he could see up Neil’s shirt and probably onto his chest. 

They were nothing compared to the marks on his otherwise unfairly handsome face. He had three long marks on his right cheek also resembling the lines often left behind by knives that stretched from near the base of his ear towards his jaw across his cheek. His left cheek was safe from knives, but there was a good inch by half inch sized burn marring the skin under his left eye.

Andrew took this all in with the look of someone who was slacking off in class but the attention of someone who was going to ace every test. 

He looked at Neil, and felt the hatred he’d been harboring for the past week and a half, but he also felt something else. _Interest,_ and that was decidedly worse. 

He turned and left the window bay to grab a piece of paper and a marker, and he scribbled:

**King.**

Before returning to the window and tacking up the reply. He stared at Neil for a moment longer while the other read the sign, and watched as Neil ripped his paper down to add underneath his original message. 

**Cute.**

Andrew scoffed and looked away then deciding immediately the conversation was over. He grabbed his cigarettes and lighter and shut the curtain, but he left the sign up, and noticed the next night when he went to smoke again that Neil had left his up as well. 

————————

Andrew didn’t have a shift at the bookstore at all the next day, so he did some cleaning and some relaxing before eventually getting ready for a late shift at Eden’s. Technically it’s a club, so they’re _all_ late shifts, but some of them started around 5 and ended around 10 while the others began around 7 or 8 and went until last call, which could be anytime between 12-3. 

It was a Friday, so he wasn’t particularly looking forward to being there amidst crowds of people; he never seemed to have the endurance for that kind of thing, and if he did, he rarely cared enough to tap into it. 

The shift came and went fine enough. He often entertained himself while there by collecting data. How many drunks he had to cut off—six, one less than his last Friday shift—how many passes he passive aggressively blew off—three, a rather average score for the night—the nights tips—rather meager, he’s afraid. Overall, not a pleasant night but not worth the energy of saying it was a bad night. It was just _fine._

But still, he could use a smoke, or five. 

Andrew threw his coat on the couch and didn’t even bother changing out of his dark and tight work clothes before grabbing the pack and lighter he left on the side table and heading towards the window over the courtyard. He made it there to see King resting on the sill, looking at him as if she just noticed now he got home. 

She meowed at him in a way other pet owners would think means she’s angry but Andrew knew was more like playful antagonism. 

“Yeah, I hate you too, fur ball.” He said as he shooed her off so he could begin removing the screen. 

He’s on his third cigarette when the curtains across the way that he’s been mindlessly staring into begin to shudder, and suddenly, he’s not alone.

Neil stands framed in his window in sweatpants and an obnoxiously orange t-shirt that clashes horribly with his red hair. Andrew feels his cheek twitch in response to this color choice but he controls himself from doing anything else at all more reactionary; not even a raise of his eyebrow to display the attention he paid to Neil simply by him appearing. 

This is the part where Andrew usually would replace the screen without so much as a glance across the way, scoop up what’s left of his pack and head off towards his room. 

Maybe it was the need to relax after his shift. Maybe it was the half a cigarette he was unwilling to prematurely dispose of. Maybe it was the T-shirt Neil was wearing that, however obnoxious, was short sleeved and showed more of his scars. Maybe it was nothing at all, because Andrew wanted—no _needed_ —nothing, but he stayed. 

He drew in another slow and languid drag as he watched Neil watch him. 

Neil fumbled for a second trying to get the window open, but eventually he did, and he leaned his arms on the sill to look at Andrew and spoke for the first time. 

“I thought there was a rule against smoking here.”

Boring, Andrew decides. He blows out the smoke he’s just inhaled in response, knowing it won't quite make the distance enough to be in Neil’s face as he would have done in person, but it gets the point across. 

“Charming,” Neil says, but the sarcasm in his tone doesn’t match the way he closes his eyes and breathes in what he can of the smoke that’s crossed this length between their windows. He lingers in this state of feeling the smoke, though diluted by now, as it wraps around him, and then he seems to almost sigh before opening his blue eyes to stare back at Andrew. 

Andrew reconsiders. Less boring.

“I’m Neil,” he says next, undeterred by Andrew’s prior lack of responses. Neil pauses a few seconds and evidently must come to the albeit correct conclusion that Andrew will not reply unless prompted to and continues with “and you are

“Not friendly,” Andrew replies. He takes the very last drag of his cigarette and puts it out on the windowsill before tossing it in the small trash can he keeps in the corner for the explicit purpose of throwing away empty cigarette cartons and butts. 

This does nothing to damper Neil’s disposition, which Andrew would describe as sunny if it were not so blatantly misleading; Neil seems to be sunny not in the way that he is the soft happy personification of sunshine, but rather that which makes you remember to reapply so you don’t get burnt. No one ever remembers though, and then they blame the sun when they’re seared to a crisp. 

Neil seems a little bit like that. 

“No,” Neil agrees, smirking and looking down as if this is some sort of private joke Andrew let him in on. He watches Neil cough out a little laugh, and feels something akin to hatred bloom in his chest again. Neil looks back up at him, and his smile widens. “Neighborly, then.” 

————————

Andrew has work at neither of his places of employment that Saturday, so when he wakes after sleeping in a little he gets up to go grocery shopping for some dinner prep for the week. 

Upon his return to his apartment building, he catches sight of Claire standing just outside the front door holding a folder and talking on the phone. Andrew wonders not for the first time if she has a day job or if she’s just really genuinely passionate about community betterment for the sake of appearances. 

He considers circling the block to avoid an encounter, but remembers the ice cream in his bag and internally groans. Her phone call better be super fucking important; Andrew wants nothing less than to hear Claire’s forced laugh right now. 

He glides past her as quickly as he can while still appearing casual, but hears her say into the phone “Oh, hold on—Andrew!”

Andrew stops staring at the door that he is currently three feet from, curses, and turns back around to face Claire, not bothering to hide his glare.

“Yeah,” she says into the phone though she looks at him and scrunches her face together into a smile and waves, “Yup!” She laughs loudly then, once, and Andrew feels his jaw tighten marginally. “Yeah, I’ve got to go,” pause, “talk to you soon,” another pause, “yes,” laugh, “bye-bye now.” She hangs up the phone, and turns her most practiced smile on Andrew, who is still looking at her with his most practiced blank stare.

“Andrew,” she says and tilts her head to the side as if he’s a problem she’s doing her best to make go away quietly. He mimics her head tilt, just to be annoying, and she clears her throat a little before righting herself. 

She tries to make small talk with him for thirty seconds which he gives non-verbal cues or one word responses to until she arrives at whatever it was she interrupted him for. 

“So,” she says in a little sing-song-y tone that is somehow supposed to alert Andrew that no longer is she playing the “Friendly neighbor” now she’s all business as “co-op board president.” 

“I was walking around down here the other day, you know, enjoying our _lovely_ courtyard, and I could have _sworn_ ,” she waved her hand in front of her face on that word. _Sworn_. As if whatever she was about to reveal was the absolute craziest thing she could imagine. “I saw a cigarette butt on the ground just below where your window should be.” 

She stopped then, staring at Andrew, still smiling like it was her job. He looked back, not letting on that he’s heard absolutely anything she said. She didn’t ask him anything, so he was not going to waste the time on responding. 

She cleared her throat again, clearly losing a little patience but not showing it, _never_ showing it. That would be bad for business, and clearly Claire was all about business. Which is why she’s not going to ask Andrew outright if he has been smoking, no, she’s going to passive aggressively discuss how _someone_ has been smoking and _can you believe that._ “Anyway, you wouldn’t happen to know anything about anyone smoking would you?” She asked, smile imploring he answer her verbally this time. 

“No,” he says back, refusing to put any more into this absolutely ridiculous conversation. If Claire suddenly had the gall to just ask Andrew if he’d been smoking, he’d consider saying yes just because of how little there is a chance she’d actually do it. 

“No, of course not,” She says. “You know what,” she looks to the side and then back to Andrew and leans in like she’s about to tell him a secret, he leans back for good measure and raises an eyebrow in her direction. “Would you let me know? If you happened to see or hear anything about someone smoking? I’d hate for one individual to ruin the atmosphere of the courtyard for everyone.” 

Andrew blinks at her and then cocks his head to the side a little as if he’s thinking. He opens his mouth to tell Claire exactly how he’d like to “ruin the atmosphere of the courtyard” when someone speaks up behind him.

“Have you interrogated every resident who’s window overlooks that area of the courtyard?”

Andrew turns around to find New Neighbor Neil standing where he clearly just exited the building in running shorts and a sweatshirt. Now both of his eyebrows are in the air, and he finds himself for the first time in a long time having to mentally check that his face remained actively inactive in the situation. 

He turns back to Claire and mockingly tilts his head again, imploring a response. 

Her smile falters, but only for the most miniscule amount of time, and then she laughs her fake, rehearsed laughter Andrew had been so keenly trying to avoid hearing. He was certain if he ended up in hell some day and received his personalized eternal punishment, it would just be listening to a loop recording of Claire’s fake tension diffusing laughter perpetually. 

“Oh, dear,” she says, laughing once more, “You misunderstand!” she holds up one hand in gesture to Andrew and says “I was not interrogating Andrew, no, I was just hoping he could help me with this special little project, that’s all.” She looks like she’s about to consider turning on her laugh again, but decides it would be overkill and settles for the smile. 

“Really?” Neil says incredulously, “My window is up there in that area too,” he says nodding in the general direction of their windows. “You didn’t ask me about smoking. Did you actually ask anyone else? Literally name one other resident you asked about smoking.” 

Her smile dims a little, the width shortening, and Claire huffs out a little laugh. “Andrew was just the first resident I was lucky enough to run into. No matter! I’m sure you’ll both keep an eye out for anyone who happens to be smoking, won’t you?” She picks her phone back up from where it rests on her folder and says “Now if you’ll excuse me,” and immediately calls someone while walking into the building. 

Andrew, still picturing the way Claire’s face got uncomfortably tense as Neil continued talking, turns his attention back to his new neighbor. 

When he does, Neil is already looking at him. He crosses his arms across his chest to study Andrew and says “You’re welcome, _Andrew."_ He emphasizes Andrew's name as if he'd worked hard to figure it out rather than just being a nosy little shit. 

Andrew scoffs “for what.”

“Saving you from the co-op board demon.”

“You did nothing but idiotically piss off the lady who holds your lease agreement without provocation.” Andrew says, his bored stare a little scrunched up as looking at Neil also puts him in the direction of the sun in the early afternoon sky. 

He vaguely remembers thinking something the previous night about likening Neil to the sun and thinks if it were true, Claire will be nursing her sunburn all night long. The sun is framing Neil’s head which is unfortunately a few inches taller than Andrew’s and it’s making his hair look like actual fire. 

Needing to look somewhere else and blaming it on the sun, Andrew tries to duck his head a little, but catches sight of Neil’s running shorts which should, frankly, be illegal, and decides he’d rather his eyes catch on fire than his cheeks flame red. 

“Ouch,” Neil whistles a little, “I thought we decided on neighborly?”

“No, _you_ decided on neighborly, _I_ decided on animosity.” Andrew replies. The grocery bag in his arm has slowly been getting heavier for a while now, and he looks down at it and thinks about his ice cream. _Should’ve taken the walk around the block_ he thinks. 

“Great, you can be hostile and I can be playfully rude.” Neil says, still annoyingly interested in speaking to him. 

Andrew tightens his glare a little bit and waits enough seconds to reply that Neil should begin to squirm, and when he doesn’t even look bothered, Andrew gives in. “Are you done?”

“Just about.” Neil claims and looks down the sidewalk and back. “I was about to go on a run anyway, I didn’t get to this morning.”

Andrew turns his body to the door, not bothering to respond, when he catches it. “This morning.” He says, looking back at Neil. 

“Correct.”

“You mean to tell me that you have been waking me up at six in the fucking morning so you could _go for a run_.” Andrew itches to pull one of his knives from his armbands and just twirl it around a little, casually threatening, but he feasibly cannot with the grocery bag in his arms. 

He continues to glare at Neil who must have absolutely no self-preservation instincts because he looks at Andrew and _laughs_. “What’s so bad about running?”

“That is not a good enough reason to be awake before dawn.”

“I didn’t realize I was waking you up, I will be quieter from now on, I will.” Neil replies, no longer laughing but definitely amused. Andrew wants to reach up and wipe the smile off of his face, but he also thinks that him touching Neil ever would be an irrevocably bad idea. 

He closes his eyes for a second and breaths in and out once sharply before turning to go inside. When he reaches the door handle Neil speaks again. “Hey, wait, are you going to that co-op mixer thing on Monday?” 

“No.” Andrew shouts over his shoulder without even looking, and finally makes it back to his apartment. 

He puts his groceries away, pats King on the head a few times, and grabs his cigarettes. 

He lights up at the window and thinks about his unfortunate new neighbor mouthing off at Claire simply for the sake of doing it. 

When he finishes his cigarette, he glances to the garbage, but decides better of throwing the butt away. He leans over his sill and watches the tiny scrap of his cigarette float down to the ground. He smokes a second cigarette for the purpose of doubling the amount of butts Claire will have as evidence, and finally, satisfied, closes the window. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Neil is observant and Andrew helps him put together IKEA furniture.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I put down 6 chapters for now because that is my ~rough estimate~ but be aware that may change give or take a few chapters!

Andrew had no intention of going to the co-op mixer on Monday night. There was no part of Andrew that ever had or ever would feel the need to socialize in a room full of boring people leading boring lives who looked at him without bothering to hide their contempt. 

He actually quite preferred they continue viewing him with apprehension. Apprehension meant none of them tried to bother him. They actually went out of their way to _not_ bother him. 

Even Claire—who often advertised inclusion when planning all of her events—stopped doing more than slipping the flyer in Andrew’s mailbox to try and get him involved after only one month of him living in the building.

Attending co-op board sanctioned events was the last thing Andrew ever wanted to do on any given night, which is why he was already cursing himself out internally the minute he walked through the door of the ground floor multi-purpose room. 

A quick sweep of this gaze around the room showed a decent turnout that would be avoided at all costs, congregations of tables and chairs spread around the room, and then, finally, what he’d been looking for. 

The dessert table. 

Andrew had made it a habit to not show up to the events Claire held on time, but rather to sneak through the doors early while set-up was happening and steal whatever free sweets he could off the table before leaving. 

He had told himself this Monday evening that the event started at 7:30, and that his window to get snacks began at 7. He’d been looking forward to it all day. 

Which is why it was all that more annoying when the nagging voice in the back of his head that had been _telling_ him and _telling_ him he was _wrong_ and he _knew it_ whispered _I told you so_. 

Andrew had an eidetic memory. He knows the flyer said the event started at 7 pm. He knows he read the flyer and it said 7 pm. He can _picture the flyer_ _in his head_ clearly labeled 7 pm. 

So why did he insist all day it said 7:30 and ignore the fact that he knew himself to be lying?

Andrew didn’t let himself think far enough to figure it out. 

He ignored the tense few seconds in which he just stood in the doorway and began walking with purpose towards the dessert table. He thought he could see a whole cake; Claire really outdid herself this time. 

Speaking of the “co-op board demon,” he saw her falter mid-sentence when she caught sight of him present at one of her events, but it was quickly glossed over and her smile back in place. 

Andrew was right, there _was_ a cake, and he did not hesitate before cutting himself a very large slice and precariously toppling it onto a plate. He searched the table for silverware and stopped moving just as his hand curled around the base of a bright blue plastic fork when he heard someone clear their throat behind him. 

Andrew gripped the fork tightly in his hand like it was a knife and turned around holding it upright, ready to casually threaten whomever it was that was about to brave getting his attention. Every single one of these fuckers here should understand by now that Andrew does not socialize. 

But of course, the one idiot who would be dumb enough to try would be his new neighbor, Neil. 

Andrew really shouldn’t be surprised. 

Looking at Neil, Andrew could see the complete lack of trepidation as he looked back at him; he was smiling in a way that screamed “neighborly!” but then looked smug when someone had accidentally driven over your garbage can lid. 

Andrew also suddenly was aware why it may have been so easy to change the event time in his head. His memory played back a soundbite of Neil going _are you going to that co-op mixer thing on Monday?_

He did not know what to make of that. 

Neil, taking the initiative to start something as it seemed might often be the case, went “I thought I specifically remember you saying you wouldn’t be here.”

Andrew lowered his fork-weapon turning it around in his head to take a bite of cake before even entertaining the thought of responding to Neil. He swallowed and let Neil savor the moment he thought he was going to get a response, and then held up his cake in a wordless one anyway without even opening his mouth. 

“I see,” Neil said, but his face said something else. His nose scrunched up a little, like he couldn’t imagine going to an event just for cake. Apparently it wasn’t a valid enough reason. So some sort of health nut then. He could not get any worse. 

Andrew took another bite of cake before going “leaving now,” and shouldering past Neil without actually touching him. 

But he only got a few feet before Neil called out “And miss all the fun?”

Okay, fine, Andrew admitted; Neil seemed full of surprises. It turns out he could get a lot worse. 

“Fun?” Andrew parroted, facing Neil yet again, who was now standing with his hands in his pockets, smirk still firmly in place. 

Andrew wanted to know what kinds of things _didn’t_ amuse Neil. He wanted to test him until he broke. He didn’t want to dance around societal rules and niceties; he wanted to poke at the scar on Neil’s cheek and ask him how he got it. He wanted to ask about that mouth of his and how often it got him in trouble. 

But Andrew also wanted nothing. Or, so to speak, he wanted nothing _enough_ . These questions about Neil were more like an itch that he could ignore until they went away or he proved boring. They were not a real _want_. They were something safer. 

“Fun.” Neil repeated. He finally dropped the smirk by licking his lips——it looked almost as if he’d swallowed it—and then cleared his throat before stepping forward to be next to Andrew. Neil began looking out over the room of people, so Andrew did the same. 

He surveyed the residents milling about and having conversations; laughing polite laughter and asking about each other's families. Filler conversation. Andrew may not participate in acts of fraternization with the residents here, but he knew for a fact he was the most honest person in the room. None of these people were actually invested in this thing. They would stay for forty polite minutes and then excuse themselves to sit and complain about that one _bitch_ from 401 and _did you hear what she said?_

Neil jostled him from his thoughts by pointing at a group across the room a little to the left. 

“For example,” he began as if this were a lecture. “Mrs. Gurston over there from 510,” he was pointing towards a woman in a gray sweater laughing with a man and another woman. As she tilted her head back to laugh, she grabbed the arm of the man next to her and squeezed a little. “She’s had maintenance over 4 times in the last week, all while Mr. Gurston over there is at work.” 

Andrew’s eyebrows raised a little at that before he could give them permission. Done laughing now, Mrs. Gurstons hand dropped back to her side, and he saw her wipe her hand on her pants without looking or breaking away from the conversation. Against better judgement, Andrew let out a huff that felt much too close to enjoyment. 

He looked back at Neil and tried to see what he was looking for now. He watched Neil’s too blue eyes light up when he found it, and pointed across the room to the other side and said, “there!” 

Andrew followed Neil’s scarred arm along and then his hand to his finger where he was carelessly pointing at another person across the room, seemingly not caring about how rude it was. 

Andrew wondered who the fuck taught this kid manners, and almost let the irony slip at that thought coming from someone like himself. 

At the end of Neil’s gaze was a man in coveralls who was dutifully doing something to the radiator along the wall. Every few minutes, he would look up from his work and glance over to the Gurstons and their friend, and then would look back down. 

Andrew noticed Mrs. Gurston never looked back. 

He scoffed again. Turned to look at Neil, who was already looking at him, smirking again now, but in a pleased way; Andrew scowled at Neil for thinking him impressed. 

He was undeterred though. Neil continued talking about and pointing at people around the room weaving stories that, if Andrew didn’t know any better, would have seemed fake, but Neil always had an observation to back up his accusations. 

He pointed to the girl sitting by her family at a table to their right and said he didn’t know her name, but he did know she lived in 630 with her reverend father who did not know she was seeing the boy in 702. Sure enough, a boy of similar age sitting with a family a few tables away would smirk at his phone every few minutes, and without fail the second he stopped, the girl would giggle at her own device and then glance over. 

Neil spoke about an older man who lived alone in 214 that was named Mr. Levvy who had the boy that lived next door pick up his groceries for him. Neil didn’t have proof for this one, but he swore the boy was overcharging him for the products. 

He named those examples and many more, and Andrew just stood eating his cake and listening to Neil spill all of his neighbors dirty laundry on the floor of the multi-purpose room, and felt that itch grow to more of a scratch. 

It didn’t hurt that Claire at some point had spotted them standing together by the dessert table and seemed pleasantly anxious about it; she never showed it in her face, but her hand was clenched so hard around her plastic cup that Andrew could see it creaking under the pressure. Everytime she glanced over looking like she was about to burst, Andrew felt less inclined to leave.

When Neil seemed out of examples and Andrew had finished his slice of cake and then also a cookie for good measure, he stopped and allowed himself to just look and analyze Neil.

He thought about this stranger who had just suddenly been there in his building one day covered in scars and a bad attitude. He thought about how he gets up to run before it’s even light outside every morning, and how since Saturday Andrew _has_ noticed a considerable difference in the volume. 

He thought about the amount of secrets Neil had just spilled; ones that weren’t his own, but also one’s he wasn’t entrusted to keep, and therefore not breaking any rules by giving away. Andrew honestly blamed the boring people in his boring fucking building for having such boring secrets that this guy could just waltz in one day and pick them all up like paper clips littering an office floor. 

He squinted at Neil. “And you’ve been here how long?” 

Andrew knew how long Neil had been there. He wasn’t sure why he asked it. He was just having a hard time computing some sort of explanation for the thing in front of him that claimed to be a person named “Neil.” “Neil” felt more like something else, something less substantial; less tangible, even. For a moment, Andrew could imagine that if he held out his hand, it would pass right through this person standing in front of him. He wasn’t sure if he was more leery of discovering Neil was real or not. 

“About two weeks now,” Neil said, smirking again and twisting slightly side-to-side, clearly enjoying this, too. 

“Hmm.” Andrew hummed a little, considering. Two weeks for Neil to walk into the building pick apart all of his neighbors dirty little secrets and deem Andrew worthy of sharing them with. 

“Are you having fun yet?”

Andrew looked away from Neil then, taking all of it in again. The people, the tables, the clock above the wall that told him he’d already been here for half an hour. 

He turned to Neil and shoved his empty plate and plastic fork towards his chest and into his scarred hands. “I hate you,” He said before walking swiftly across the room, flipping Claire off as he passed for good measure because he watched her eyes follow him, and sulked in his room until he fell asleep. 

__________

Andrew went back to avoiding seeing Neil at his window as best as he could. He was still trying to process everything he had learned about his mysterious new neighbor, and he didn’t feel like adding any extra stimuli until he had figured Neil out. 

So far, it wasn’t going very well. 

Andrew often instead found himself wondering if he would have been able to pick up on all of things Neil had in the little time he’d been there had he cared enough to pay attention to the other residents' lives. 

He wondered what Neil had learned about him, and hated himself that he wanted to ask. 

He hated more that whatever it was hadn’t kept Neil away. 

Until he felt like he had come to terms with the oddity that was Neil Josten living next door to him and how he apparently found Andrew worth his time, he would continue to disappear from his window the second he saw Neil’s shadow arrive at his own. 

And, of course, because when has Andrew ever been on the good side of luck, this plan only lasted a few days. 

Andrew had come back from a morning shift at the bookstore to thankfully no shift scheduled at Eden’s that Friday night hoping to do absolutely nothing in his apartment all day. 

Which is of course why fate—that bastard, whom he’d never believed in but nevertheless was being to spite—decided Neil would be cursing up a storm and sounding like he was competing in his own personal in-apartment bowling tournament through their very thin shared walls. 

Every five minutes, Neil would drop something—or throw something it sounded like—which Andrew would usually hear first, and then it would be followed by an extremely impressive array of curse words and threats. Andrew knew Neil had a mouth on him, but he quickly squashed anything that he might have felt about hearing him put it to use. 

After an astounding hour of listening to Neil slowly lose it—the longest gap between shouts being 12 minutes and the shortest 37 seconds—and an astounding cry of “Motherfucker-shit-no-good-son-of-a-bastard-dick—” Andrew decided he had had enough. 

Throwing his book aside and ignoring the angry mew King let out at Andrew’s near miss in hitting him with it, he, with bitter contempt, left his apartment to go knock on Neil’s door. 

As he knocked, he considered whether or not he should remove one of the knives from his arm bands, decided on yes, and held it out so it would be about level with Neil’s throat when he opened up his apartment door. 

To Neil’s credit, he did little to react to the knife Andrew had out for him when the door opened. He glanced at it once, but gave it little to no more attention after that.

To Andrew’s credit, he did not show how much that infuriated him. 

“Hello to you too,” Neil grumbled, crossing his arms in front of his chest. 

“What _exactly_ is it that you’ve been doing that is eliciting such a constant string of profanity from your mouth, and how much convincing do you need to stop it.” Andrew knew he said the word “convincing” in a way that sounded more like “threatening,” and he could honestly say that was the way he preferred it. 

“You can save your threats, I have something else to offer.” Neil smirked, like he’d been doing all night at the mixer, a look Andrew now associated with his amusement. How he could akin putting his observation skills to the test with a knife being pointed at him, Andrew didn’t know; but he _wanted_ to, and that alone was enough to spoil the whole act. He lowered the knife and slipped it back in it’s sheath, motioning with his now empty hand for Neil to _go on._

“A deal,” he said next, which was probably the one thing he _could_ have said that Andrew would have entertained. Whether Neil had figured that out or just would have asked anybody who’d come knocking Andrew wasn’t sure, and he did not want to weigh the implications of considering. “I will considerably lower the noise if you can figure out _that_.” Neil shifted out of the doorway and gestured heavily towards a pile of wooden planks and pegs sitting in a rather sad heap on the floor of his living room. 

How Neil could study a group of people for two weeks and learn all their worst secrets as if they’d been tattooed on their foreheads but not have the ability to assemble ( _what was this,_ Andrew wondered while kicking at the closest _clearly_ misconstructed section, _a TV stand maybe)_ a piece of IKEA furniture was absolutely beyond Andrew. 

He kicked at the same misshapen wooden conglomerate again and it fell apart completely in a noise Andrew now recognized from _this_ side of the wall. 

He looked back towards Neil with a look the other hopefully correctly interpreted as an extremely exasperated _seriously_? Neil just glared at the pile of parts as if it had personally offended him, and Andrew thought it _better_ have for it to have screwed up his plans and cause so much noise.

Andrew picked up the discarded instructions on the floor to the right of the pile and scanned it quickly once. The instructions were in Swedish the furniture being from IKEA, but the pictures were easy enough to understand. He threw the paper over his shoulder and began separating the different pieces into piles and laying out how it should go together on the floor. 

He was so busy trying to put together what he could now confirm _was_ a TV stand that he had almost forgotten about Neil watching him from the couch (which was, by the way, the _only_ other thing in the room besides a few cardboard boxes). _Almost_. 

It seemed some part of his body was unnaturally tuned into Neil’s presence, and not in the way Andrew was already accustomed to cataloging the people who were in a room with him and their whereabouts. 

Noticing this just made him work harder. 

The piece of furniture was actually starting to resemble that—furniture, that is, and not a piece of crap woodpile—and it was getting harder to fit the shelves in while everything else was connected and not just conceptually laid out on the floor. 

Andrew held up the sliding piece that was supposed to separate the shelving sides but had tried and failed _twice_ to insert it into the base of the stand. 

That is until Neil spoke up behind him. “Left,” was all he said. 

Exasperated at doing all the work for a TV stand that wasn’t even his own, and even _more_ irritated that Neil had dared to correct him on it, Andrew snapped out a “what?” looking over his shoulder at where Neil was. 

“The instructions say that goes in on the left side, and then you slide it towards the middle.” When Andrew continued to stare at him, Neil casually went, “didn’t you read the thing?”

Andrew stared at him a second longer, just to make sure he was serious, and deadpanned “it’s in Swedish.”

Neil’s face scrunched a little. “You don’t read Swedish?” 

“ _No_ I don’t read _fucking Swedish.”_ Andrew dropped the piece and gestured emphatically at the instructions. “Why the _fuck_ would I read Swedish?” 

Neil was throwing his arms in front of him and then out towards the sides almost like he was short-circuiting and somehow couldn’t understand the fact that Andrew didn’t know Swedish. “But you looked at the instructions! You clearly understood something!” He says, finally deciding on pointing towards the almost complete stand. 

“Yeah,” Andrew says as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world, “I looked at the fucking _pictures,_ Neil.

That must have _really_ confused him then, because if Neil before was short-circuiting, then now there was full-on smoke coming out of his ears. “You looked at it _once.”_

“Can we go back to _you_ knowing _Swedish.”_ Andrew threw out, not caring to explain the intricacies of an eidetic memory and losing interest in the line of questioning, so therefore switching to something more interesting. 

“Okay, well I don’t really _know_ Swedish,” Neil bargained. “I can’t speak it, and my reading is, like, elementary.” That was all the explanation he offered, as if it explained everything. 

“Uh-huh.” Andrew didn’t know what to make of any of that, and frankly thought it best he try to figure it out away from Neil himself, so he turned around and inserted the piece like Neil instructed, and then stood up and looked at the now completed TV stand. “Done.” 

Andrew deemed that enough of a goodbye and turned to walk back towards the door, but Neil said “wait,” and against his better judgement, he did. 

“I ordered some Chinese and I think I might have gotten too much. Did you want to stay?” 

Every warning sign in Andrew’s head told him no, that this was a bad idea. He knew logically that it was, but the part of him that had begun to itch the other night when Neil proved to be just as interesting as Andrew hoped he wouldn’t be wanted to ignore that point. It wanted to sit on Neil’s couch and watch him inevitably give up more clues as to who he was despite the danger; like adding a 30 minute difference to a mentally recalled flyer. 

So he did. 

Neil _did_ order too much food, and they sat on his couch and ate with paper plates in a thin layer of silence that meant neither of them knew quite what to ask first. 

Neil evidently decided to start with “How come you only needed to look at it once?” Which Andrew thought was a waste of a question. 

“Eidetic memory. How come a nobody like you can _read_ Swedish.” 

Neil smirked at that, and twirled his plastic cutlery around in his hand methodically, as if it were something else. “Knowing things like how to read Swedish and other languages helped to _stay_ a nobody.”

That’s when the equation Andrew’s brain had been trying for days to solve arrived at an answer. Things suddenly seemed to make a little more sense. The running habit, observation skills, the scars and languages. “Not a nobody, then,” Andrew amended, “a rabbit.”

Neil turned his attention in Andrew’s direction and raised his brow in question. 

Andrew sighed but he still conceded, “skittish and a flight risk,” he met Neil’s eye, “a runaway.”

Neil smiled a ghost of a smile, but Andrew couldn’t quite tell if he was pleased or relieved Andrew had said it for him. Whichever it was, he was certain, though, that Neil’s reply was more mournful than anything else. “Not anymore.”

They sat there in the silence that came after Neil’s concession, and both stared at the TV stand opposite them against the wall. 

Andrew sighed and spoke again. “You don’t even have a fucking TV.”

And Neil had the audacity to laugh. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed :) Please leave comments, they make my day!! Tune in soon for the next chapter. HINT: Neil's gonna get a cat <3


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Neil and Andrew shop for a TV and Neil gets a cat :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey :) hope you enjoy this one! I actually name drop some of the other foxes here and Nicky makes a few cameos, so, look out for that ha!

Andrew was thinking back to the events of the past few days, and even with his perfect memory he had no idea how he ended up here, today, in a department store with Neil, helping him pick out a TV. 

He supposes he felt responsible for this idiot neighbor of his to not somehow completely fuck up the seemingly straightforward task of shopping for a TV, because if anyone could do it it would be Neil. 

Neil hadn’t exactly invited Andrew along for the trip; he had mentioned that he was in need of a TV—as if Andrew hadn’t already been aware of that fact—and also happened to confess that he had no idea what to look for and had never had to buy one. Andrew had scoffed and grabbed his jacket before calling Neil an idiot and following him out the door. 

They had been walking slowly through the entertainment section of the store; stopping occasionally to fool around with the display electronics, taking their time getting to the TV’s. They had spent at least 15 minutes in front of the nintendo switch zip tied to the counter taking turns playing the generic switch game card that was in the device. At one point, Neil ran and Andrew briskly walked away from a display speaker that began playing Taylor Swift at extremely obnoxious volumes because Neil pressed “play” not knowing it would work. 

Now, they stood in front of a huge wall of TV’s—all playing different channels—as Andrew tried to explain to Neil all the features on them based on their card descriptions. 

“But why can’t I just pick a random one?” Neil said, frowning at the wall of TV’s.

Andrew rolled his eyes. “This is why you had me come. You know nothing.” He pointed at the cards next to each TV again trying to explain. “They all have different features, it depends what you want.”

“I didn’t tell you to come. You  _ followed _ .” 

Andrew turned to walk away.

“No! Okay, wait, just, explain the features to me again?”

Andrew sighed but pointed at the TV’s again and listed things off. “This one comes with apps, it’s a smart TV. Like Netflix, Hulu, Youtube, etc. But the picture isn’t as good as this one.” He pointed at another TV. “Which also comes with surround sound, it makes it sound kind of like a movie theater does.” 

“I don't have Netflix, or whatever those other things are. I think Allison does, though.” 

Andrew didn’t know who Allison was but he didn’t bother asking either. He did not care who she was or who she was to Neil. On some level though, he had accepted that the mention of Allison without further explanation was because she must have been his girlfriend. Andrew told himself he wasn’t disappointed, just displeased Neil seemed to be getting more boring, as he knew would happen eventually. 

It was a good thing, he reminded himself. If Neil was boring he could go back to living his routine and not having to stop to think about what his sorry neighbor was up to. He knew Neil would prove to be boring eventually, better now than later on. 

“Why can’t TV’s just, like, have channels anymore. This is so much more confusing than it has to be. All it has to do is  _ turn on.”  _ Andrew glanced at Neil to make sure he was serious—something that he’s had to do  _ a lot _ —and then sighed at how ridiculous he was. 

“If it doesn’t matter then just pick one.” 

“Rude,” Neil said but without any malice. 

Andrew rolled his eyes and glanced down the aisle at the electronics counter, where the employee who had originally come to ask them if they needed help but quickly gave up when neither Neil nor Andrew did more than stare at him had gone to take shelter behind the counter. 

His phone ringing jogged him out of where he’d zoned out, and he looked down to see Nicky calling him. 

Andrew’s gut reaction was to decline it, but he thought about how he’d declined the last  _ two  _ calls, and how he was not likely to want to answer anytime in the future either. He groaned internally and answered the call.

“What.” was the only greeting he offered his cousin. 

Andrew saw Neil standing a foot or two to his left, still glancing at the TV’s like this is the hardest decision he’s ever had to make, but he knew he was listening. He held out hope that his cousin wouldn’t ask him anything he didn’t want to answer—however one-sided a conversation Neil would hear—but quickly let go of it remembering this was Nicky. He was only comforted by the thought that if need be, he could always switch to German. 

“Andrew! My darling cousin! You actually picked up, I’m touched.” 

Andrew grunted in response. He could picture Nicky in his apartment in Germany right now, hand over his heart acting far too affectionate. 

“Man, you just won me $10. Aaron bet you wouldn’t pick up.”

Andrew vaguely wondered if Neil could hear Nicky through the phone being his cousin was as loud as always. He hoped he couldn’t; he didn’t know what Neil would get out of this mundane conversation, but he had seen Neil work with a lot less at the mixer, and didn’t want to find out. 

“What do you want, Nicky?” He said into the phone, kicking a discarded security tag around on the floor with the toe of his boot.

“Nothing! Just to talk, you know, proof of life and all that. How are you? How’s King Fluffkins?” Come on, spill.” 

Andrew didn’t even have time to hope that Neil hadn’t heard that before Neil’s head swiveled towards him with a grin on his lips and trouble in his eyes. Andrew glared back. 

“ _ You  _ told me his name was  _ King _ .” Neil laughs, TV’s completely forgotten now, not that it seemed he was getting any closer to choosing one. 

“Wait, who was that?” Nicky said through the phone, and Andrew cursed himself internally. “Wait, Andrew, who are you with right now?”

Andrew didn’t even hesitate, he switched to German and answered Nicky’s question. “He’s no one.” 

Nicky didn’t question the language change, probably because he was too busy being nosy to care. “Doesn’t  _ sound _ like no one, Andrew. Who is that?” He could hear the excitement in Nicky’s voice and was already regretting his decision.  _ This  _ is what he gets for answering the phone.

Before Andrew could deny Neil even existing, Neil spoke up, still next to Andrew. “Yeah, Andrew, who am I?”

But he said it in German. 

Andrew’s facial expressions didn’t  _ do  _ surprise, but the way things seemed to suspend around them for a second, neither of them breaking eye contact or moving an inch, must have gotten the point across. Andrew took in a deep breath and pushed aside his surprise and whatever else he was feeling at the moment. “Goodbye, Nicky,” he said into the phone, hanging up in the middle of cutting off Nicky’s pleadings of “Who is that” and “Oh, come on, You didn’t even—.”

“You speak German.” Andrew said, even though it stated the obvious. 

“I speak German.” Neil confirmed. 

Andrew stared at Neil, weighing this new information. Swedish and German were hardly the only languages Neil knew, of this he was certain. Andrew wasn’t interested so much in the list, he was interested in the how, the  _ why.  _ Whatever it was that caused Neil to land here, now, with Andrew in this moment. He looked at Neil, and felt the sensation of time slipping through his hands, borrowed time, sand in an hourglass, as if this moment were fleeting and he knew it. Like looking into Neil’s eyes, here, had an expiration date, and when it was met, Neil would dissipate like smoke in the air, or from the end of a cigarette, burnt off from a fire. 

Neil claimed he wasn’t a runaway anymore, but Andrew knew that old habits die hard. Habits borne from a need to survive, died the hardest. They needed to be hunted down and wrestled with, and they didn’t often go easily. Andrew knew that better than most, and he felt that when he looked at Neil. 

He thought it best to look away, so he did.

“How?” He asked, now looking down the aisles of devices beside them, perpendicular to the TV wall. 

Neil whistled and shook his head a little. “Not for free.” 

Andrew turned back to him, “A trade then.”

Neil nodded, accepting the offer. “You don’t seem to me like someone who often lies.”

He wasn’t. Andrew did not lie, but that wasn’t a question, it was a poorly phrased assumption, so he told Neil that. 

Neil scoffed and amended it to, “Do you lie often?”

“No.” Andrew replied.

“You told me his name was King.”

“That was not a lie, his name  _ is _ King.” Andrew argued. 

But Neil wasn’t convinced, he shook his head and smirked. “A lie by omission is the easiest way to lie.” 

“You would know.” Andrew accused right back, just to be fair. 

“I would.” 

Andrew repeated his question then, knowing he offered enough for Neil to be satisfied. “How do you know German, rabbit.” 

“I spent a few months in Germany when I was younger. I had to know it to blend in, didn’t really have a choice. I learned it from the son of the lady whose house we rented a room in.”

Andrew considered this. Neil didn’t explicitly add on that this was when he was running, but Andrew knew it to be true anyway, and he knew Neil knew he knew. What could Neil have been running from that he needed to leave the country? And young kids don’t get out of the country and to Germany on their own. He put these questions to the side to ask another time. Details like those would cost him, he knew. 

“Now,” Neil said, looking back at the TV’s, “I think I’m going with that one.”

____________

As annoying as helping Neil pick out a TV had been, setting it up had been worse. 

When they had finished, Andrew had wordlessly sat back down on Neil’s couch without invitation, and he did not miss the way Neil seemed to be too pleased at his decision to stay. 

He ordered a pizza for them—a thank you for the TV help—and sat on the couch with Andrew as they waited for it to arrive. 

Andrew watched as Neil flipped through the channels on his new TV and finally settled on just leaving some house hunting show on in the background. Of course, it was fitting for Neil to prefer reality TV to the entertainment variety of things. 

“Yeah, I guess this  _ is  _ nice.” Neil said, head tilted as he regarded the TV now on the stand Andrew had put together, face flickering with the colors of the show as the scenes kept changing since they hadn’t bothered to turn on the light. 

He turned and noticed Andrew observing him then and explained. “I was fine with just the couch, but Allison came over last week and refused to come ever again unless I got more furniture or a TV at least.” 

Ah, Andrew thought,  _ the girlfriend _ . So she was the reason Andrew had spent time in the last few days putting together  _ Neil’s  _ furniture and helping  _ Neil  _ pick out a TV.

“Girlfriend?” Andrew asked, unwilling to put any more than that into this conversation. 

“What?!” Neil turned to look at Andrew confused, “No,” he laughed, “Allison’s just a friend. She has a girlfriend, anyways, and I don’t really...do that.” His face scrunched again, an expression Andrew now knows he does when he’s confused or trying to process something. He hated the way it made his chest tight. 

He watched Neil a little longer, prodding without prodding, giving Neil the option to continue explaining or not. 

He noticed Andrew’s stare again and continued, much to Andrew’s pleasure. 

“Dating. I’ve never really felt anything like, that, for people.” He looked back at house hunters where some boring white couple was “ _ looking for our forever house.” _

Andrew ignored the way his brain caught on the ambiguous  _ people _ and focused on the rest of this development. 

Neil doesn’t  _ do that.  _

Now, maybe, he would feel less like he was cutting off his own oxygen supply when he looked at Neil or begrudgingly helped him do things. 

He looked back towards the TV, too. 

“Do you always do what your friends tell you to?” He said instead, drawing the conversation back to safer ground for them both. He saw in the side of his vision as Neil turned to look at him, pleased Andrew had changed the topic but also wondering where this new line of conversation was going. 

“No, sometimes it’s just easier too.” Neil shrugs, taking a sip of his drink. “Do you?” He asks back.

Andrew responds immediately, “I don’t do anything I don’t want to do.”

A true sentiment, but one Neil seems to take further than Andrew had meant it; He’s smirking as if he just sort of won something, and Andrew’s head feels flush with thoughts about a half an hour spent at a mixer, building a TV stand, the electronic haze of a department store entertainment section. He too turns away from Neil and sips his drink. 

____________

It turns out Andrew’s routine did change after his new neighbor Neil settled in, only not in the way he expected. 

He still woke up every morning when Neil yet again decided to go on a run for reasons Andrew would never understand, but falling back asleep was a relatively easy task; if only because he now could take his frustration out on Neil himself. Though somewhere along the way, his threats sounded emptier to him, and Neil increasingly looked bemused while hearing them. 

Andrew has had his threats fall on deaf ears before; there are people who have crossed Andrew despite his warning signs and understood the consequences, but even Andrew couldn’t deny that they held no weight when he said them these times and to Neil. It was like robbing a bank but with a water gun.

Neil’s ears were not deaf to his threats. Neil heard each and every one of them clearly, and stood next to—if not closer to—Andrew anyway. Neil had been threatened before, no doubt, and was probably by now better than he’d like to be at determining how seriously he should take them. It didn’t get past Andrew that Neil knew they were all empty, but he would not give up on saying them anytime soon.

Andrew would hold out on this sentiment of threatening Neil for as long as he could. He would not let himself consider why they both knew Andrew would never act on any of the things he claimed he’d do. Even without doing so, he already couldn’t shake the feeling he was bailing water out of a boat without bothering to patch the hole in it; a lost cause. 

So despite the unwanted early morning wake up calls, Andrew let his routine re-shape itself around Neil. 

He found out Neil works a 9-5—a fact Andrew wished he found as boring as he did when it was anyone else doing it—as a risk analyst for a bank. (Andrew made a quip about whether or not Neil included his experience of analyzing risks on the run on his resume, to which Neil asked if Andrew included  _ his _ experience drinking himself into oblivion on his for Eden’s). 

Andrew’s schedule was more erratic, but on nights when he didn’t have to go into Eden’s or wake up for an opener at the bookstore, he often found himself on Neil’s couch; trading things for pieces of the puzzle he hoped would equal up to Neil Josten and eating take-out or whatever Andrew had cooked them. (Neil tried to cook, once, and was quickly banned from ever doing it again. It also became evidently clear Neil doesn’t even have the proper kitchenware to cook  _ anything,  _ which shouldn't have shocked Andrew, so he instead would cook dinner at his place and bring it over to Neil’s for them to eat.) 

On weekends sometimes Neil would tag along as Andrew ran errands or went to the grocery store. Those trips were always the same; Neil, glaring at Andrew as he added item-with-high-sugar-count after item-with-high-sugar-count into his cart, and Andrew glaring back when Neil got anything standardly healthy, just to be petty. 

The first time Neil came around for Andrew when he was having a bad day, Andrew expected Neil to lose interest and decide Andrew wasn’t worth it, but Andrew once again underestimated him; or more likely, wished he hadn’t. 

Neil seemed to sense right away that something with Andrew was off from the second he opened the door. 

Andrew didn’t even bother to think about what he must have looked like, but whatever it was caused Neil to drop any and all of his gimmicks for the time being. He wasn’t smirking or looking like he was about to be a major pain in the ass. His eyebrows furrowed a little as if he thought he could see what was wrong on Andrew’s face if only he looked hard enough. 

Andrew just stood there, vaguely looking at Neil, but more so looking through him and not wanting to focus too much on his presence. 

Neil took a step back and glanced down the hall back towards his apartment and said “Ah, you know what? It’s not important, I can ask you later.”

Neil turned to go back the way he came but Andrew reached out with one hand and grabbed onto the sleeve of Neil’s sweatshirt and gave it a small tug, careful to not actually  _ touch  _ any of Neil himself. 

It was wordless permission to ask now anyway. 

Neil looked at Andrew’s hand on his sweatshirt—which he did not drop even when Neil stopped moving—for a few moments longer than it maybe would’ve taken someone to normally process it, but he did stop moving. 

He looked back at Andrew and nodded. “Okay,” he said, and settled back in front of the open door. “Where did you get King?”

Andrew blinked once, and Neil kept talking. “I’m thinking of getting a cat, but I know actually nothing about  _ how  _ to get a cat, so I thought I’d ask where you got King.”

Andrew raised an eyebrow at the thought of Neil getting a cat, but wordlessly took that and went back into his apartment. He dug around a drawer in his kitchen for the business card of the shelter where he adopted King. 

He turned around to give the card to Neil, but found him still standing in the hallway outside Andrew’s door, and not behind him in the kitchen where Andrew assumed he’d follow him. 

Neil has been in Andrew’s apartment before, so he can only imagine the apprehension stemmed from the state Neil thought Andrew was in.

Andrew hated that Neil didn’t follow him in and hated even more that Neil respected this boundary Andrew hadn’t even laid out, just in case. 

He walked back to Neil, shoved the business card at him and slammed the door in his face cutting off Neil’s abrupt “Thank you.”

____________

By the same time next week, Andrew was back to his normal, and Neil had adopted a cat and was continuously sending Andrew pictures of him throughout the day. 

To the third picture Andrew had received by eleven in the morning, Andrew responded:

**[10:56] A: Funny how everytime I need you to actually use your phone you cannot be bothered, and yet.** ****

**[10:57] N: Just look at this handsome boy. [image.png]**

Sighing at the fact that his day was obviously going to be commandeered now, Andrew set down the novel he was reading and walked down the hall to knock on Neil’s door.

Within ten minutes of being in Neil’s apartment, Andrew could see how wholly unprepared he was for owning a cat. He had the sense to buy a litter box and Andrew could see the food on the counter, but that was it. There was no scratching post, no bed. Not even treats to go with the food, or toys to play with. 

He asked himself why he was shocked, this was Neil after all. 

After getting acquainted with the cat—still unnamed—Andrew bullied Neil up and out the door and back to the pet store to show him what  _ else  _ he should have for the cat. 

Then, the rest of the day was relatively relaxed. They sat on the floor with the cat—who was very friendly and audacious, no doubt why Neil chose him—and played with him or watched him investigate every inch of Neil’s apartment, taking no time to settle in. 

Andrew didn’t know how long he had been there when his phone began to ring. He pulled it out of his pocket to see it was Nicky, and declined the call. He did this two more times before Nicky resolved to bothering Andrew over text. 

**[1:49] N: Andrew :(**

**[1:49] N: Answer your phone :(((**

**[1:53] N: Literally WHAT could you be doing that’s so important**

**[1:54] N: I know you’re not at work :/**

**[1:57] A: [image.png]**

**[1:58] N: ANDREW!!!!!**

This time when Nicky calls him, Andrew picks up the phone and puts it to his ear without verbalizing a hello. 

Nicky doesn’t seem to notice, he immediately says “Andrew! You got another cat?!”

Andrew snorts a little huff at that, “No.”

“What?” Nicky responds incredulously, “then who’s cat is that? Andrew, don’t steal someone else’s cat.”

Before Andrew can even consider answering that, he sees Neil reach over from where he’s sitting on the floor across from Andrew, the cat using his shins to rub against, and makes to grab Andrew’s phone from his hand. Stilled momentarily by the audacity of one Neil Josten, Andrew lets him without a fight, and practically hands the phone off to him. 

Neil puts it to his ear but pays no more attention to it than he needs to, as if he couldn’t care less; instead, he reaches a hand back down to scratch under his cat’s chin, as if it’s the only thing holding his interest. 

“It’s my cat.” Neil says into the phone, no introduction or embellishment. 

Andrew, not wanting to admit that he’s amused by the change of events, turns his head to look at the wall and away from Neil. 

“And WHO are YOU?!” Nicky asks through the phone. Jesus, his cousin is loud Andrew notes. No shock at all Neil has been able to eavesdrop on all of their conversations. 

“No one,” Neil says back, and Andrew can hear the amused lilt in his voice, which is exactly why he refuses to turn back and acknowledge him. “Just a neighbor, Neil. And you are?” Neil asks that question as if he regularly vets who calls Andrew. 

Andrew refuses to let himself react to this at all. 

“Nicky, Andrew’s cousin. It’s nice to meet you!” When Neil clearly isn’t going to offer a response to this after a few seconds, Nicky continues. “Well, Neil, you have a very cute cat. What’s his name?” 

“Uh,” that stalls Neil, “He doesn’t have one yet.” Andrew actually feels the silence light a charge and  _ knows _ Neil is going to say something stupid before he does. “I was thinking Andrew.”

Andrew flips him off still without looking and hears Nicky laugh through the phone. 

“Fitting, no doubt.” His cousin replies, “but I recommend something else if you want to live without fear.” 

That comment  _ does  _ have Andrew looking back at Neil now. He hopes Neil interprets it as the confirmation of a threat Nicky offered up for him, but rather he’s just interested in cataloguing Neil’s reaction to Nicky’s characterization of Andrew. 

Andrew see’s Neil’s face scrunch, a depiction of his confusion, and he says into the phone “Well do you have any suggestions then?”

Andrew knowing Nicky as he does, knew this was the wrong thing for Neil to say, but when Nicky suggests Sir Fat Cat McCaterson in a tone that Andrew wishes didn’t mean he were completely serious and Neil conveys back that  _ he likes it _ in a tone that Andrew wishes meant he were lying, he loses hope that he understood anything at all that just happened. He grabs his phone from Neil’s hand and shouts “Bye, Nicky,” into the receiver and hangs up before standing up, leaving Neil laughing on the floor of his apartment, and smokes three cigarettes to drop out of his apartment window for Claire to find and seethe over later. 

____________

Despite Andrew’s abrupt disappearance from Neil’s apartment, Neil takes no offense at all and doesn’t even hesitate to text Andrew that he’s ordering Thai for dinner and has 3 minutes to tell Neil if he’s in or not. 

Though Andrew’s stomach feels uncomfortably violent at Neil knowing when and when not to take Andrew’s dramatics seriously, he gives in and tells Neil he’ll be over in ten.

In the few hours since Andrew vacated Neil’s apartment, Neil has already shortened the name Nicky adorned his cat to “Sir,” much like Andrew had to King. 

Neil hands Andrew the TV remote while Neil goes downstairs to get the food from the delivery guy and Andrew changes the channel from Neil’s reality crap to Netflix and puts on Criminal Minds though he’s seen the whole show at least four times. 

They eat in comfortable company of each other; Andrew commenting on things the victims  _ should _ have done instead to avoid stupidly getting killed and Neil correcting things about how the cops and the FBI  _ actually  _ would’ve handled the investigation. Both of them getting far too into hypothesizing themselves into these situations and lamenting about what they would have done differently to not get caught. 

Long after the food is gone and halfway through their third episode, Andrew grows disinterested in this game, he wants a new one; a more substantial one. 

He turns to look at Neil, who is seemingly engrossed in watching agents Rossi and Prentiss dissect a crime scene. 

“I’m calling for a trade,” Andrew says into the silence between them, drawing Neil’s eyes off the screen and to his own. Neil sits up and turns his whole body on the couch to face Andrew, unnecessary but not unnoticed. 

“Okay,” Neil says “go.” 

“How come someone so unbelievably unprepared such as yourself up and got a cat?” 

Neil grinned, but it was small and almost embarrassed, something unfit for Neil’s face. Andrew had begun thinking he had no shame, and he didn’t like that he was proven wrong. 

“My friend Matt suggested it. He thought if I had something to look after, another life I was responsible for, that I would feel less likely to run and risk leaving it behind.” 

Andrew had heard of this Matt before, Neil’s college roommate and first friend as he put it. Him and his girlfriend Dan were mentioned often, along with the Allison he had previously thought to be Neil’s girlfriend. 

Andrew continued to stare at Neil because he didn’t think he could look anywhere else; he looked at Neil like he  _ couldn’t  _ look anywhere else. 

His head had told him from the second he’d met Neil that he was unattainable for reasons Andrew knew too well and clung to too much, but it didn’t stop hearing Neil reason this out from hollowing out his stomach. Neil was unattainable for  _ Andrew,  _ but then again  _ so was everyone else,  _ and isn’t that how he wanted it?

But, from the moment Andrew deduced Neil was a runaway, no matter how desperately he claimed “former,” Andrew knew that meant Neil was unattainable back. Even more so after he learned that Neil doesnt  _ do that,  _ date, hold interest in people. 

So why did it feel like he’d been walking a tightrope for weeks only to arrive within sight of the landing to find Neil, kneeling there already, holding a scissor to the rope Andrew walked on? 

Andrew used the new emptiness in his stomach as a door, shoved all those feelings back inside of it and locked them up. He swallowed as if to swallow the key, and processed this with a better hold on things. 

Neil can claim all he wants to be a “former” runaway, but Andrew knew how hard those kinds of habits were to get rid of. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t need to keep himself in check right now as he comes to terms with the fact that Neil  _ is  _ as fleeting as looking in his eyes felt that day in the department store. 

That feeling of time suspending and sand sluggishly trickling down the sides of an hourglass he gets while sitting with Neil is not a show of relaxation, but a frenzied attempt at taking in the time Neil was offering, knowing it would likely not last. 

That is why Neil looked embarrassed; having to admit that even his oldest friend—albeit of only a few years—despite knowing Neil as long as he has can sense that Neil still feels  _ restless.  _ Neil still  _ feels  _ the need to run, even if he doesn’t  _ have  _ to anymore. 

Andrew knows what it’s like to cling tightly to an act of survival, but he can’t stop the wave of anger he feels at Neil for having to rely on something else—like a cat—to settle his unsettlement. 

As if these people he seems to care pretty highly for—this Matt, Dan and Allison—don’t seem to be enough to anchor him. 

(As if, a voice says in the back of Andrew’s head, he wouldn’t think twice about running from here, this place, without you.)

He shouldn't be shocked, so he tells himself he’s not.

He wants to break eye contact and look away from Neil, but he doesn’t this time, hoping maybe Neil will take something out of this and understand without Andrew having to tell him that he  _ doesn’t have to fucking run anymore.  _

Whether or not he gets the message is up in the air, as Neil says “My turn, why did you get King?”

Andrew looks away. As much as he was letting Neil see into him a minute ago, the shutters have closed now, and his response leaves things to be asked. “My therapist recommended it.” 

Neil nods and doesn’t ask more than Andrew offered, despite the fact that he gave more of an explanation, and Andrew is livid at Neil for not pushing him further; asking him to admit that Bee had recommended Andrew rescue a cat to practice caring and providing for something else, letting himself get attached to an animal like a cat, and processing those feelings. A cat, specifically, because it wouldn’t require as much physical affirmation as a more reliant animal like a dog would. Not needing to push himself further than necessary at each individual moment. 

He says he’s livid that Neil didn’t corner him into any confession, ignoring the disappointment when Neil accepts this answer and begins clearing the empty cartons of food and plates out of their way. 

Instead, unforgivably, it feels more like gratification. 

Andrew gets up, finishes his drink, and sees the “Are You Still Watching?” notification pop up on the TV screen as their episode ends. He walks to Neil’s door without saying anything else, and balks at how he knows Neil won’t take this harshly, wishing, as he always does, Neil will prove him wrong for once. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading <3
> 
> Tune in next time for the return of Claire and some more truth trading. 
> 
> Leave Kudos and comments if you're enjoying! I love to see it :)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claire retaliates for the smokes, Neil visits Eden's, and...other things happen too.
> 
> TW: cannon-typical tw's apply but only vaguely

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Amanda or Kaylyn if you're reading this no you're not you don't know me. Just know that if you see the word "kiss" it's actually read "held hands."
> 
> got it? cool <3

Andrew had come back from his morning to midday shift at the bookstore, stopped to grab his mail from his mailbox, and then did not get any further into the building. 

He had stood, staring—for at least 5 minutes now—at the bulletin board above the wall of mailboxes. 

There, right in the middle of the board, a plastic bag with five cigarette butts in it was tacked up under a note that said: 

**Reminder: Smoking is PROHIBITED in your lease agreement!!!**

Andrew couldn’t tell if he was pleased more with himself, or the thought of Claire wearing rubber gloves and repurposing salad tongs to pick up his used cigarettes from the courtyard grass. 

Somewhere in him, it occurred he should be more careful if he wanted to keep his lease. He told himself he couldn’t find it inside to care enough to, but then he thought about how moving would move him away from Neil, and he hated more that that felt like a valid incentive to stop antagonizing Claire. 

Before he could drag his gaze away from the board to go back to his apartment, the door opened and he glanced over without turning his head to see Neil waltz into the building looking perfectly indecent in his running shorts and covered in sweat. 

Andrew warred with wanting to look at Neil and knowing he should avoid looking at Neil; eventually the latter won out, and he continued staring at Claire’s notice. He wondered how far he could push Claire until she confronted him outright, or if she ever would. He seemed to have a talent for breaking people. 

Neil came and stood next to him despite Andrew blatantly ignoring him and whistled at the sight of the plastic bag of cigarettes and warning on the board. 

“What are you gonna do to her?” Neil asked him, without looking at Andrew.

Andrew thought about it for a second. “Maybe I’ll push her off the roof of this building she loves so much.”

Neil turned his head quickly in Andrew’s direction, and for a second, he thought he had finally scared Neil off. How Neil could look like he’d been on the wrong side of death and yawn when someone held a knife in his face but recoil at the casual death threat they both knew Andrew wasn’t going to act on almost infuriated Andrew.  _ Almost.  _

He was  _ almost  _ disappointed in how boring Neil would turn out to be after all. 

But, as usual, he had underestimated Neil, because he followed his look with “What?! No, you’d never get her up there.” He looked back at the board and then shrugged, “plus, someone would definitely hear. She would  _ not _ go easily.”

Now it was Andrew’s turn to whip his head around at Neil. Maybe he should have stopped underestimating him by this point, a month or so into knowing each other, but he preferred to hold out on the hope that Neil would prove less dangerous and interesting every day, until Andrew felt safely apathetic towards him. 

No matter what, he  _ can’t  _ believe Neil just  _ corrected  _ his threat. 

“what would  _ you  _ do then.” Andrew asked, rather annoyed. 

He watched as Neil contemplated this question properly, like a waiter in a restaurant asked if he wanted to start with any appetizers and not like Andrew asked his best opinion on how to hypothetically kill and stage the suicide of their Co-op board president. 

“Statistically, most women commit suicide by firearm, but I doubt she owns one of those. It would hardly be believable.” That didn’t answer the question but Andrew knew better—at least, this much so—that Neil was likely far from done. “Wrists are hard to fake. Does it have to look like a suicide? I know some ways we can just make her disappear.” Neil turned to meet Andrew’s eye—as he had yet to stop watching Neil—and looked as if he were seriously waiting for Andrew’s deliberation. 

Andrew, of course, is the first to turn away. “I hate you,” he tells Neil. “Who let you live here.”

“The woman who’s murder we’re so kindly planning,” Neil grinned.

“Can’t we just mess with her breaks? It’s easy, let it do the work for us.”

“Lazy.” Neil nudged the toe of Andrew’s boot with his own running shoe. “Are you speaking from experience?”

Now that surprised Andrew. Maybe it shouldn’t, he doesn’t know anymore, Neil Josten has come into his life and made him a fool already in more ways than one, it is only fitting that he now must reckon with being understood. 

So maybe he isn’t surprised that Neil could sense that out of him, maybe he’s just surprised that Neil asked a worthwhile question this time, or that he asked a question where the answer makes most disagreeable with Andrew at the very least. 

“Are you?” He says instead, giving himself more time and a better chance of extracting something from Neil in return. 

“I asked you first,” Neil turns to face Andrew, board and cigarette butts forgotten, and tacks on, “you know I’ll trade for it.”

“And what if I am?” Andrew says then, crossing his arms over his chest and also facing Neil head on now. He knows the position is purely defensive whereas this conversation should feel more on the offense for him than anything else; this is the kind of thing normal people would discover and blanch at. They would use it to justify the wide berth they already gave Andrew and increase the radius a few extra feet, for good measure. 

But Neil Josten refused so  _ loudly  _ to be described as  _ normal.  _ Even if not for the clear neon sign above his head that said  **_“Extensive childhood trauma!”_ ** If Neil had grown up differently, less scarred maybe, less of a restless idiot and more of a regularly energetic teen, Andrew would pity the person who tried to fold Neil into a box labeled “normal.” Neil simply refused to go quietly, even though he spent half of his life hidden under layers of baggy clothes and hair dye and contacts—some things Andrew had traded some truths for—trying desperately to become  _ blandly forgettable,  _ Andrew doubted it could happen. A welsh poet whispered in the back of his mind  _ “do not go gentle into that good night,”  _ and for the first time, Andrew stopped to wonder how the people who left their mark on Neil came out the other side. 

So, defensive, not offensive, because Neil was trying to figure  _ Andrew  _ out this time, and not just digging for excuses to avoid him. Because he’s  _ Neil.  _

“Just,” Neil shrugged and his nose twitched a little, “it’s unreliable. How can you be sure the job will get done?” 

Andrew noted Neil’s concern with all of Andrew’s choices so far seem to be about  _ efficiency _ and  _ noticeability.  _ Typical for a runaway, but for some reason, so far from the mess of the neighbor Neil has turned out to be. He almost brings this up to end the conversation safely, but finds himself prickling at the idea of backing Neil away from this very  _ real  _ conversation. Another piece of the puzzle. He says before he thinks any further “Well, I pulled the wheel for good measure.”

This wipes any of the amusement or thought off of Neil’s face as he darts his eyes back to Andrew’s after they’d wandered somewhere else mid-conversation, likely infuriatingly making other corrections mentally to Andrew’s idea.

“You were in the car?” It sounds oddly quieter than Andrew thought Neil capable, but the remark he had about this died in his throat and was buried the second he conceived it. Neil has something else on his face, now, the look he gets when he’s about to give someone a piece of his mind. 

Andrew does not like the change in tone.

This is a stupid question as Andrew had already confirmed that with his prior statement, and he also feels less inclinced to continue this conversation now that it feels like an interrogation. 

Oddly enough, an interrogation was what he was hoping for in terms of disbelief in the act, and not the method, which instead, he preferred ignored. Neil fucking Josten.

“How did you ensure you’d be okay?” Neil asks next, realizing his mistake with his previous statement. 

Andrew doesn’t scoff at this, but it’s a near thing. As if he needs Neil Josten, his neighbor of few months to be concerned for his safety. He doesn’t  _ need  _ anything. He certainly doesn’t need the misplaced concern of a tragic stray who himself looks like he’d been less than careful a few times in his life. Who the  _ fuck  _ does this guy think he is? 

Because, here’s the thing, Andrew  _ didn’t  _ ensure his safety when he got in that car with dear ol’ Tilda, may she rest in misery. A fact his brother and cousin conveniently don’t think about when considering the bare bones of the fact: that Andrew had engineered the death of their relative, despite the fact that she had been nothing but a  _ plague  _ on Aaron’s life. 

Andrew may not have had the warmest feelings towards his brother from the second they met, but Andrew was not going to  _ let him  _ be abused right in front of him. He made Aaron a deal, and  _ fuck him  _ for believing he would do  _ anything  _ less than follow through. 

So after, Andrew watched him cry for his mother, and wondered if Aaron would have shed any of those tears for him if the car had taken them both.

Not that he would have cared for or wanted his pity, his emotion; it was the principle. 

Getting in that car, for Andrew, hadn’t even been a decision, really; he was upholding his promise to Aaron. The recklessness of it just felt more like a gamble than a worry. 

The anticipation of the crash, the feeling of it hitting. 

Watching them wheel Tilda’s body away. 

Those things, were worth it for the risk. What wasn’t was Aaron’s  _ mourning.  _

But Andrew didn’t believe in regret, and since he didn’t mind Aaron’s hating him, he didn’t have anything to regret anyway; especially not getting in that car.

He turned his head to the left refusing to make eye contact with Neil, looking instead at the wall blankly. 

Neil sucked in a sharp breath and when he breathed it back out came his loath, “you didn’t,” answering the question for Andrew. He didn’t owe it to Neil to respond anyway. 

Andrew walked away without acknowledging him at all. 

____________

Andrew was suffering through a particularly annoying shift at Eden’s when he caught sight of a familiar heathen walking through the doors and scanning the room as if looking for someone; looking for  _ him.  _

Andrew made every drink he  _ hates  _ making  _ at least  _ twice that night so far. He had dealt with the already fairly tipsy bridal party that had been sitting at the table closest to the bar all night, so that even though Andrew couldn’t care any less, he could easily hear everything they were saying, whether or not he was actively listening. At least they tipped well. 

He hadn’t had to cut anyone off yet, but he didn’t hold out hope that he wouldn't have to; the bar was unusually busy for a Thursday night. Andrew wondered if there was a three-day weekend he wasn’t aware of; some stupid national holiday maybe, but his memory didn’t fail him, and he was coming up blank. That didn’t seem to be the case. 

He was in the middle of actively glaring at one of his regulars, Benny, while he—not for the first time ( _ tonight)— _ tried to engage Andrew in some form of small talk, as if he clearly wasn’t busy and uninterested when Neil walked through the door of Eden’s and surveyed the room. 

Andrew knew Neil knew he worked here. Andrew knew Neil was likely looking for him. What Andrew didn’t know was why Neil was there. 

Neil caught Andrew’s eye over the bar, smiled, and worked his way to the corner where there was an empty seat at the very end of the bar. 

Andrew’s eyes followed Neil until he made it to his seat, and then he turned and walked away from Benny, mid-sentence, who grumbled about civility, but he should’ve known better than to try and corner Andrew in a conversation anyway.

Andrew stopped in front of Neil, with his hands on the bar, and looked at him with a look that he knew Neil would translate correctly.  _ What are you doing here? _

If Neil did pick up on it, he certainly ignored it, and smirked at Andrew’s quick attention to his presence. “Hi.” 

“Hi,” Andrew mocked back. “What do you want?” What do you want to drink, what do you want  _ from me _ , Andrew didn’t know how he hoped Neil would interpret his open-ended question.

“What customer service, Andrew,” Neil mouthed off, “a soda,  _ please.”  _ He accentuated the please as if he was giving Andrew a lesson in niceties. 

Andrew gave him a soda, and then returned to staring at him openly and said again, “What do you want?”

Neil took a sip of his drink and shrugged a little. “I don’t know, Allison is dragging me out in a bit and I knew this place was on the way and that you were working, so I stopped by. Is that a crime?”

“It should be.” Andrew responded, ignoring the girl from the bridal party wearing a  _ maid of honor _ sash who was trying to get his attention a few seats down the bar. Jean was at the other end, he’d see her eventually. 

Neil shrugged again, “I’ll leave if you tell me to.” He said it casually and looked around the bar while he was waiting for Andrew to respond. He said it  _ casually _ , but it didn’t feel like a casual question. Andrew decided it best not to respond; instead he watched Neil survey Eden’s with distaste, and noticed how completely out of place Neil looked in his casual clothing and just total  _ Neilness.  _

He turned back to Andrew when he realized he wasn’t getting a response and smirked again. Andrew put his hand on the side of Neil’s head and turned his gaze away from him and Neil laughed. 

He went back to serving the people down on this end of the bar when it was called for, but never seemed to venture more than six or seven seats away from Neil. Just because it was busy for a Thursday didn’t mean the crowd was bad, just that Andrew didn’t reserve the amount of energy he would actually need for this shift, but rather what he’d expected. Jean was keeping up just fine with everything Andrew was ignoring, and when he didn’t have any direct requests to fill he was leaning his arms on the counter in front of Neil and chatting with him, refilling his soda. 

“No, absolutely not,” Neil was saying as he played with the straw in his almost empty drink. Andrew grabbed the soda nozzle and refilled it while Neil—who in sync removed his hands when he saw what Andrew was doing—reasoned out his argument. “One undivided enclosed space is so much better than something with rooms or sections. There’s too much to clear and secure, there’s no way you’d hold it. Zombies will get in either way, probably, but there's nowhere for them to hide in, like, a grocery store. Just check every aisle.”

Andrew put the soda nozzle back down and shrugged, “They tried both in The Walking Dead, none of it worked out in the end anyway.” 

Neil’s face scrunched, “In the what?"

Andrew rolled his eyes and stood up, taking his upper body weight off the bar top. “You’re useless.” He was too used to Neil’s complete lack of pop culture understanding or even knowledge. 

Neil was not offended by the comment, he smirked and took another sip of his newly filled drink. 

And then Roland wandered up to the bar and said “Hey, I just got off.” He smirked at Andrew, “feel like taking your break?” Roland nudged his head in the direction of the back room. 

Andrew looked in that direction and could see Jeremy hanging up his coat, no doubt replacing Roland as bar-back and table buster for the night. He looked back at Roland who was waiting casually for Andrew’s response, but then Andrew looked back to Neil. 

Neil was looking at Roland, his face scrunched again, at which Andrew felt momentarily relieved: he knew meant Neil was puzzled by the conversation. Then he reminded himself he had no  _ reason  _ to be relieved, because he had no reason to  _ worry  _ in the first place. 

Roland only just seemed to notice Neil’s presence, and glanced at him raising his eyebrows. “Oh,” he said and grinned, “or not?”

Neil looked back at Andrew then and his eyes widened in surprise as he seemed to finally use that math brain of his to compute a conclusion as to the proposition being offered. 

His brow then furrowed as he looked at Andrew, and then his cheeks reddened a little to rival his hair and he glanced down and began chewing on the straw in his drink. 

Andrew looked back at Roland and didn’t even get to answer before Roland went “You know what, ah, I’m on tomorrow, see you then?” and turned to go grab his coat, nodding a “hello” at a cheerful Jeremy. 

“Neil,” Andrew said, watching as his neighbor still seemed to be furiously chewing on his straw like he was trying to digest it. 

Neil looked up, startled a little, as if he hadn’t expected Andrew to still be there. 

“So,” Neil started, “that guy, you and he, uh,” he stuttered again, “you guys, um—”

Andrew didn’t back down, he cut Neil off with a firm “sometimes,” and stared him down. 

Neil nodded, then he nodded a few more times, too many times to seem casual. He cleared his throat. 

Andrew kept staring until he was sick of the fidgeting, “Spit it out, Neil.”

Neil jumped a little, which he then seemed embarrassed by being as aware as he is of his surroundings at all times. He finally re-met Andrew’s eyes. “Nothing, just doesn’t make sense to me.” 

Before Andrew could clarify  _ what  _ didn’t make sense to him, Neil glanced at Andrew’s watch and pulled his wrist towards him to get a better read. “Fuck,” Neil admonished his negligence, “I’m gonna be late, now, Allison’s gonna kill me.” He jumped off his stool and turned to go but paused first; Neil turned back to Andrew and said, “I’ll see you at home,” and walked out of the bar. 

Andrew spent the rest of the shift hearing Neil’s mouth shape the word  _ home  _ and how he used it to describe them in conjunction. 

____________

That weekend, despite Andrew’s shift at Eden’s on Friday and subsequent opening shifts at the bookstore both Saturday and Sunday, he still couldn't help but notice Neil’s absence when he  _ was  _ home. 

Saturday and Sunday generally being off days for Neil usually meant he’d see Andrew at least once; bothering him for at least one dinner or lunch or just company. Even if Neil went out with his friends one night or if Andrew had mandatory familial facetime calls with Nicky and Aaron, they did something every weekend, inevitably.

Not this weekend. 

Andrew didn’t receive any texts begging Andrew to cook him something or any un-asked for but appreciated (not that he’d ever admit to Neil, though he’s sure he knew anyway) pictures of Sir doing something ridiculous. No noise from his otherwise mess of a neighbor, always doing something to disturb Andrew into going over there to check it out. 

Nothing. Eerily so. 

Andrew didn’t like feeling like this, like him being into  _ guys  _ was what pushed Neil over the edge. Not any of his other certainly more threatening  _ confessions _ , just the fact that he liked dick. 

He scoffed, pushing down any disappointment he felt. He did not  _ need  _ Neil, he reminded himself. It didn’t matter Neil was the first person he’d met who had been able to keep up with him. If Neil was homophobic he didn’t fucking need him. 

He reminded himself that even if Neil wasn’t homophobic he wouldn’t need him. Something he caught himself forgetting more and more these days. Forgetting, something he didn’t do. Adapting, then.

He wasn’t going to  _ adapt _ anymore, certainly not for  _ Neil.  _

It was Monday night and Andrew was at his window, staring unceremoniously into Neil’s window, trying to picture the scene right now behind the closed curtain. 

He stubbed out his cigarette without finishing it and stood up straight. He didn’t  _ need  _ this, staring into Neil’s window wondering what he’s doing and why Andrew cares so much to know about Neil’s boring fucking day. 

Just as he’s about to readjust his screen, he sees movement at Neil’s window and pauses where he is. 

Neil’s curtains draw back and there he is, standing, staring at Andrew too. 

He’s wearing that bright orange T-shirt again, the one Andrew first spoke to him in—when he chided Andrew for smoking—and gray sweatpants. Neil pulls his own cigarette out then, and Andrew wishes he could make a comment about the irony of the visual, though he’s known for a while now that Neil does smoke occasionally, but more often than not he just breathes in the smoke for comfort. 

His hair is wet as if he just showered, and Andrew knows he wouldn’t shower at night again unless he went for a second run after work, which means he’s mulling something over. Andrew then hates that he could figure all that out with one glance at his elusive neighbor, and clenches a fist at his side. 

Andrew drops his other hand from where he was going to start putting the screen back up, and leans back down on the windowsill to watch Neil remove his own screen, even though he sees Andrew at his own window. 

Neil lights up his cigarette, taking one drag just to get it started, but not breathing it in really, uncaring about the nicotine and the head rush. 

Andrew is the impatient one this time and surprises them both by speaking first, annoyed already that it’s taken this long for him to speak to Neil again, to  _ see _ Neil again. 

“He lives,” Andrew mocks, and he sees Neil smile, but in a concealed way that Andrew decides to interpret as shame, a wince. 

“Yes,” Neil prompts carefully, as if  _ he’s  _ the one walking a tightrope this time, and not as if he was the one who cut Andrew’s rope first. 

Andrew lets out a shallow breath and goes right for the throat, not trying to dance around this conversation he’s been simulating in his head for days. 

“Are you homophobic, or something?” 

Neil looks a little surprised at this as if it weren’t a perfectly logical conclusion to come to based on him finding out Andrew sometimes casually hooks up with a guy from his work and then avoided him for days. 

Andrew would scoff if he weren’t so out of breath, and if this weren’t just so  _ Neil _ .

“What!? No, you do know that, like, at least half of my friends are LGBTQ, right?” Neil looks quizzical, like he’d expected Andrew to come to a different conclusion from his silence, which means there was something  _ else  _ bothering Neil, and he was  _ worried about it.  _

“Then what the fuck is your problem?” Andrew stands upright then, again, and crosses his arms over his chest; then he reminds himself he doesn’t need to be  _ defensive  _ around Neil because Neil shouldn’t  _ have  _ the capacity to hurt him, and uncrosses them, shoving his hands in his pockets.

“I don't know,” Neil admitted looking down as he ashed his cigarette. He stood up fully too then and looked at Andrew head on, “I didn’t,” he searched for the right word, “enjoy, hearing that  _ guy  _ just casually offer whatever it was he was offering you. Then I didn’t like thinking about how it was probably a regular occurrence. I didn’t know what to do with that, I didn’t know  _ why  _ he was pissing me off he just was.” Neil looked away then, out towards where the street was, near the mark where they’d harassed Claire when Neil learned Andrew’s name. “I talked to Allison about it when I met with her, but she just pitied me and didn’t help.”

He made eye contact with Andrew, who had yet to look away from him, again, “and then I needed to think about it away from you, but I shouldn’t have avoided you, that was wrong.” He didn’t apologize, maybe because he knew Andrew wouldn’t appreciate it. 

Andrew knew what Neil was describing, but he was also pretty sure Neil didn’t know what Neil was describing. The last he’d heard, Neil  _ didn’t do that.  _ Neil didn’t play for any team, he said he didn’t  _ feel  _ that way for people. Asexuality existed, Andrew knew that, and it was a relief at first to hear Neil describe it to him, and then it was an annoyance for reasons he refused to acknowledge, but it didn’t change the fact that it  _ was.  _

Was, maybe past tense? 

He clenched his teeth before lighting another cigarette. He smoked half of it before either of them spoke again. It was Andrew who initiated, again, and they both ignored that that was twice in one night.

“Were you jealous?” Andrew asked as carefully as he could. He didn’t do hiding, he refused to move away from this problem that needed solving and walk carefully on eggshells around whatever it was Neil opened up in this conversation. 

Neil considered for a moment before answering, “I think so, yes.” 

“I thought you didn’t see people like that,” 

Neil put his cigarette out and carefully tried to navigate his next sentence it seemed because he opened and closed his mouth a few times. It seemed he failed in the end anyway, because what came out was “I didn’t, or, well I don’t.” He sighed and put his hands in his pockets and then shrugged before looking again to Andrew, “it’s not  _ people.”  _ Neil finished, but Andrew heard what he was really saying, it’s  _ you.  _

And that?  _ That  _ pissed Andrew off, because how hard is it to just stay consistent, to follow  _ rules.  _ To tell Andrew that he didn’t feel that way for people and change his mind. 

Andrew was angry at Neil for showing up one day and just entering Andrew’s life and entangling himself in it in such an incomprehensible way that Andrew couldn’t go more than three days without seeing Neil, and if he’s being honest, couldn’t go even  _ one  _ without talking to him. He was mad that Neil had managed to do that and to do it so completely that it felt  _ dependent,  _ because that’s something Andrew just didn’t do, and Neil fucking Josten the  _ flight risk  _ wasn’t going to be the one who made him do it again. 

So he spat out “Tell me one fucking thing about you that  _ is  _ true,” because Andrew didn’t like liars, and though Neil wasn’t technically  _ lying  _ and he himself was just as confused by this situation, he also didn’t like being caught off guard, and that Neil  _ had  _ done. 

Because of all the reasons Andrew considered Neil avoiding him since Thursday night, he hadn’t considered  _ jealousy.  _ He certainly hadn’t considered being the subject of Neil’s identity crisis. 

Neil seemed to take the taunt with grace, he nodded and said “the door is unlocked,” and then began putting his window screen back in place and shutting it tight. Andrew waited until Neil put the curtains back in the way as well before he moved. 

When he made it to Neil’s room, he knocked even though Neil said the door was open, and then waited a second before entering. Neil was kneeling on the ground in his living room, not far from his window, scratching Sir while she weaved around his hand, directing him to where she wanted to be pet. 

He looked up when Andrew came in, but made no move to get up. 

Andrew shut and locked Neil’s front door behind him—wanting to scold the idiot for leaving it unlocked in the first place—and took his usual seat on Neil’s couch, waiting for Neil to join him. 

When Neil did, he only wasted a second of looking at Andrew before beginning to speak. 

Andrew had asked Neil to tell him one true thing about him, so he did. 

“Did you know my father gave me these?” Neil gestured all around himself at what Andrew could only assume where the scars. Andrew did not know that. 

He listened intently while Neil spoke and wove a tale about growing up in that place he couldn’t even bring himself to call a  _ house  _ in Baltimore. He told Andrew about the times he was punished for not being quite enough or being too quiet or causing issues. He told Andrew about the way he learned to use a knife by being the demonstration, and how the longer he squirmed the longer it lasted. He told Andrew about the things he’d seen and the things he’d learned until his mother decided,  _ finally,  _ they had no place there. 

He told Andrew what it was like on the run. Never the same person, never a  _ real  _ person, a  _ memorable  _ person. He confessed about his mothers death, and how he was too focused on  _ getting out of here right now  _ to notice she was dying until it was too late. How he had to bury her somewhere on a beach on the west coast, and how he only lasted two years without her before they got him too. 

A boy named Nathaniel died in a basement in Baltimore when his father, Nathan, did; the only thing that was left was Neil Josten, this restless and hostile neighbor of his, who ran miles upon miles every week just to feel like he was still moving. 

“Did you know I move every time my lease is up?” Neil asked, too, with a bitter laugh, even though the question was likely rhetorical. Andrew made no move to interrupt him. “This is my fourth apartment in five years, every time my lease is up I find a new building that’s not too far from work in some direction or other. Otherwise I start to panic.” He looked up at Andrew before admitting, “I’ve almost run twice, called Matt to come pick me up a few towns over once, completely wrecked. That’s why he recommended Sir, this time.” 

Neil had stopped speaking for the time being, but he didn’t look done, so Andrew kept quiet. He pictured a little ten year old boy forcing colored contacts into his eyes rather than risking getting beat by his mother, or the worse alternative, being recognized and caught. He pictured Neil as a teenager, getting drunk to withstand the stitches his mother was putting in his side, building the mistrust he has with alcohol now knowing how loose it’ll make his tongue. 

He hated the way he could tell Neil still cared for his mother through the telling of his stories. She was the reason, he’d learned, Neil was comforted by cigarette smoke. It made him sick to think about Neil mourning this woman who’d abused him—no matter what he called it, not  _ survival  _ or  _ protection _ , no she  _ abused him _ —just like his brother had done those years ago.

Andrew was glad she was dead, otherwise he would have done it himself. 

“I wanted to tell you that,” Neil looked to consider his words carefully, “I was never allowed to feel  _ this _ for someone before. She would hit me if I looked at anyone  _ like that.  _ It was a liability.” Neil swallowed. “But then even when I stopped running, I didn’t look at anyone. Someone asked me which way I swing and I just said  _ neither.”  _

Andrew wasn’t sure where this was going, and he had to bite his tongue to not cut Neil off with an angry  _ there is no this _ before he could finish. 

“But, I still don’t  _ look at  _ anyone else.” He made sure Andrew was still looking at him—like he’d looked away at all, yet—and said “It’s just you.” 

Andrew looked away. He did not want to look into Neil’s eyes when he tried to process that. Everything in his being wanted to riot at that sentiment and tell Neil he hated him and leave the room, but Andrew knew better than to startle a rabbit. 

He found one point, a fixed point on the wall, above the TV they had bought  _ together  _ and the TV stand  _ Andrew  _ built in that new period where Neil had just moved in, and spoke for the first time since entering Neil’s apartment. 

“My  _ mother,”  _ he spat the word, letting Neil know she was his mother only in birth at the barest sense of the word, “put me in foster care but kept my twin brother Aaron.”

“How many homes?” Neil asked from his position next to and facing Andrew. Andrew didn’t turn to look at him. 

Just as Andrew knew Neil needed to get through his story unprompted and uninterrupted, Neil understood that Andrew would need something else. The gentle stimulation was enough to keep Andrew engaged and offering things without probing too much.

He did turn to look at Neil then, “Thirteen.” 

So he shared with Neil in return. He told Neil about bouncing from house to house, none of them good none of them quite deserving of the word  _ house  _ either. They were just places he was dropped momentarily, places he  _ endured.  _ He didn’t linger on any of them until he got to Cass’, and even then barely. He didn’t give such details as Neil had sharing his story. He didn’t paint Neil pictures of a sad mistreated young Andrew wondering what he did wrong to deserve any of this. He told all with clinical detachment, he was stating facts and not telling a story. 

Neil prompted for details lightly where he knew Andrew would need it. When they got to Tilda and Andrew stopped, Neil filled in the blanks for him. 

“The accident?” 

“Yes.” 

“You’re life is worth more than an abuser’s, Andrew.” 

Andrew wanted to bite into Neil with comments about how  _ he’s  _ one to talk with his guilt complex over his dead mom, but he couldn’t bring himself to. He pushed Neil’s face until he was facing away from him again and continued.

He told Neil about those men harassing Nicky, and what he did  _ to protect him _ , though it’s rarely seen as that. People never seem to see violence as a form of protection. Is it not a means to an end? An effective one? 

He told Neil about the trial, the medication, those three years he spent high out of his fucking mind, and the void he came back to when he was finally back on the ground. 

“What did it feel like?” Andrew thought this one was more to satisfy Neil’s curiosity than anything else, but he answered it anyway. 

“Nothing.” 

“What did you do?”

“I found things that made me feel again.” Andrew shrugged it off. He had developed his tricks long ago, in college when he first got back off of the medication. They seemed more like tasks he had to complete now, rather than things he did. Like having to brush his teeth in the morning, or get the mail; he also had to stand in his window and glance below at the ground. 

Fear might not be the most enviable thing to feel, but Andrew reasoned that it was better than feeling  _ nothing,  _ and only truly strong emotions existed enough for him to access them anymore. Fear was just the easiest to reach.

“Like?” Neil prompted, leaning forward a little, drawn in by the conversation.

“Heights,” Andrew admitted, but his tone was off, and he knew it. He phrased it like he was going to give a list, and not like he was providing an example.

Because he knew now that there was one other thing that denied him the right to remain devoid of emotion, of  _ feeling _ , and it happened to prove more effective than heights after all, which was why it was that much more frightening. Especially when such an unpredictable, uncontrollable, feeling.

“And?” Neil whispered, unsure if this was a line he should cross. 

Andrew stared at him in response until he got it. He may have just shared more with Neil tonight than he has his brother and cousin combined  _ ever,  _ but there are some lines that aren’t as easily erased. _ Habits borne from a need to survive, died the hardest.  _

Neil already made him feel more than he enjoyed, and admitting anything more than that now was asking to regress.  _ Progress is a continuous process,  _ isn’t that what Bee liked to say? You can’t  _ rush  _ it. 

And Neil,  _ Neil,  _ wasn’t the kind of person whom you gave and inch and they took a mile. Neil didn’t even  _ ask  _ for a mile. You gave Neil an inch, and he looked at you like you’d offered to buy him Europe because you had some cash lying around. He treasured it like he’d never been offered anything before; like he couldn’t believe someone paid him enough mind to offer him  _ anything _ much less give  _ up  _ something for him. 

Andrew knew this was his cue to leave. He didn’t trust himself staying any longer in Neil’s presence on his hospitality. Not when his hair had long dried into pillowy waves on his head that Andrew wanted to pet. His eyes were still glued to Andrew’s like a deer-in-headlights, but they weren’t full of pity, they were full of  _ acknowledgement _ and understanding. Andrew wanted to kiss the burn scar on his cheek and make him forget what it was like to not be offered anything by anyone before. 

He knew this was his cue to leave. 

He should leave. 

He didn’t. He picked his hand up off of his lap and brought it slowly up to Neil’s cheek, giving him plenty of time to move away, and when he didn’t, he rested his hand there, thumb brushing right over the scar. 

Neil pushed his face a little further into Andrew’s hand not unlike a cat, and he found himself closer to Neil than he let himself ever get. Because where’s the harm now? 

_ Everywhere, _ he reminded himself, but just like standing on a roof or by a tall window, it was too intoxicating to move away from. 

So, instead, he moved  _ in,  _ and Neil met him halfway. 

Kissing Neil was everything he’d dismissed before as an inaccuracy when describing him. Kissing Neil was laying on the roof of a tall building high on the exhilaration of being near the edge, and  _ warm  _ from the afternoon sun, like a blanket of light that you could never roll out of on accident. It  _ was _ the smile that screamed neighborly—the one that he offered Andrew the first time they talked despite Andrew wanting nothing more than to throw a knife into Neil’s window pane for waking him up in the mornings—but without the petty consequences. 

He had one hand on Neil’s face still, and the other on his waist towards the inside of the couch, which is why he felt Neil’s hand twitch at his side and without hesitation reached out to push it back down onto the cushion. 

The momentary clarity made him sit back. He leaned back out of Neil’s space but Neil made no move to do the same, staring at Andrew intently and a little dazed. 

“Tell me not to,” Andrew insisted.

“Why?”

“Because you still don’t know  _ what  _ you want, and that’s not a yes.” 

“I know I want you to do that again.” Neil said, pushing a little further into the space they just vacated. 

“Neil,” Andrew warned, not willing to sacrifice any of his principles for the sake of Neil’s experimentation. He knew thinking that was a cheap shot, and he knew Neil had mentioned doing other things  _ before _ , but the rule stands.

“Andrew,” Neil whispered, an inch closer, “do that again.”

Andrew leaned back towards Neil, but stopped just shy of actually kissing him. When he was close enough, Neil whispered his yes, so Andrew did it again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!! 
> 
> I think...some other foxes may actually appear in the next chapter 0_0 possibly...


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Neil has some bad days, does some things, there are some consequences, and Sir and King have an unplanned playdate or two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Did you order some angst? No? Oh, that's weird...I could've sworn someone did. Oops :)

As the last wind of a winter season—or as winter as it got in South Carolina—blew in and made its last stand, and with it the month of March, Andrew witnessed what he could only assume was Neil’s version of a bad day. 

It had started the second week of March—only a week or two since _absolutely nothing_ (because Andrew refused to acknowledge that something _had_ ) changed between them _—_ when Andrew woke up on a free Saturday with a text from Neil.

**[9:03] N: The door is unlocked**

Andrew didn’t bother responding as he didn’t see a need to and got up to shower and get dressed before heading over. 

He was already mad about being up earlier on a Saturday than necessary when he  _ didn’t  _ have work for once, but Neil so rarely bothered to ask for Andrew’s company without a poorly framed excuse, and never before a time he knew Andrew was likely to be agreeable. 

Andrew saved his griping about the hour in favor of queuing up a comment about Neil’s sudden neediness and what  _ exactly  _ he could do with it—because  _ Andrew  _ certainly wasn’t going to comply  _ always _ —but the comment died in his throat. 

He swallowed it down as he observed the sight beyond Neil’s unlocked door. 

Neil was laying on his couch in big bulky clothing Andrew had never seen him in—which was good because Andrew would have burned it on sight and never let him wear it again. He made no comment about this either. Neil was in his too-big clothes with Sir sitting on his chest as he stared at the TV; it was playing a rerun of some soccer match, but Neil didn’t seem to be watching it though he hadn’t yet looked away. 

Andrew knew immediately this was not the Neil who had come to be his, well,  _ neighbor.  _

Andrew wondered, minutely, if this was even _ Neil. _

He turned to shut the door and it was then that Neil looked up at him. Andrew thought of yet another comment he didn’t make about whether or not Neil’s  _ exemplary  _ spatial awareness was working all right. 

Neil grinned at Andrew, but that too, didn’t seem his. It was the kind of greeting you practice to give strangers—if you were into that sort of thing—and not your neighbor-turned-monogamous-unlabeled-hook-up. Andrew didn’t care for it. 

He walked the length of the couch before standing in front of the end where Neil’s head was propped against the arm, effectively blocking the TV, not that Neil had really been paying attention anyway. 

“Hey,” Neil said, though Andrew could tell just by the way he said it that it didn’t get past Neil that Andrew knew something was up. 

“You didn’t go running this morning.” Andrew hadn’t even realized he’d noticed that, even, until he said it. The quick codification of Neil so far from the text this morning to now had apparently also noted the lack of a wake-up call Andrew had come to expect but hate no less. 

Neil’s eyes glanced down, and they seemed to be staring at Andrew’s midsection, but Andrew knew really they were returning to their post of fake-staring at the TV—even though it was blocked by Andrew. 

Neil rarely back’s down from Andrew’s gaze. Often his eyes wander, yes, as the little rabbit likes to keep up with his surroundings out of habit, but this is different. If Andrew is staring Neil down with a challenge—which they both knew the question was—Neil didn’t concede. 

He did this time; his looking down was as much an admission as what he said in response to the question. 

“I wasn’t sure I’d come back.” 

Ah, this is a rabbit issue then. Neil didn’t go on his morning run, because he couldn’t promise he’d  _ come back. _

_ Because you’re not worth coming back for,  _ he reminded himself.  _ You’re a project for Neil, something entertaining.  _ He thought about kissing Neil,  _ an experiment, even.  _

Andrew moved, he walked to the armchair that was slightly further past the couch; one he’d  _ also  _ helped Neil pick out when he was told he needed even  _ more  _ furniture, which Andrew couldn’t help but agree with.

He sat down and studied Neil who’s eyes hadn’t moved to follow him, but just kept staring at the TV like Andrew hadn’t prior been blocking the view. 

“What am I, your fucking babysitter?” Andrew scoffed. He had never been a comforting person, not who anyone would come to in a time of need. Neil didn’t seem bothered by this, Neil wouldn’t have texted Andrew to come if he wanted someone else to be there. Andrew had heard enough about Neil’s friends by now to know they’d come coddle him the second he hinted things were wry. 

“You’re proof,” Neil said, this time though making eye contact, which Andrew almost hadn’t noticed was happening now.  _ Almost.  _

Because it’s impossible to miss a stare with eyes like Neil’s. 

“Of?”

“That Neil Josten exists.” 

____________

The next few days went sort of like that. 

While Andrew on a bad day locked himself in a room with absolutely no human contact, Neil did what he guessed could be considered the opposite. 

Everyday Andrew would wake up and head to Neil’s apartment for whatever hours he didn’t have work. Neil had, apparently, saved his PTO to have the entire week off claiming “family business;” Andrew didn’t ask.

Neil didn’t  _ trust  _ himself not to run, so he was trusting Andrew to moor him, like a boat to a dock in a raging storm, trying it’s absolute best to  _ stay n one place.  _

Andrew reminded himself Neil should have nothing on him to hurt him with, but it still felt distinctly unpleasant whenever he remembered that if he just didn’t go to Neil’s during one of those days, he likely would have never seen him again. 

Then, at other times, Andrew would remember that Neil had invited him there  _ personally, because  _ he wanted to stay, and he knew Andrew would help him accomplish that.

They spent most of the time on Neil’s couch, watching mindless TV. Once or twice, Neil had asked Andrew to read the book he had been silently reading on the side out loud, so he did. They didn’t speak much, and usually Neil ended up  _ somewhere else.  _ Andrew didn’t know where he was, whether it was a nameless city during his time on the run, or if he was back in Baltimore, but he watched Neil as Neil watched nothing,  chasing ghosts with his eyes that weren’t there. 

After the second day, he began sleeping on Neil’s couch rather than going back to his room, and only returned to change clothes or grab something like a phone charger. King kept protesting his leaving, so they brought him over too, and he got along rather well with Sir, which meant they were completely indifferent as long as either Neil or Andrew acknowledged them equally. 

Neil seemed to appreciate this, so Andrew refused to make him aware of the effects it had on  _ him.  _

Neil knew anyway, though, because Neil  _ always  _ knew , and he did what he could to make sure he didn’t provide any more discomfort towards Andrew than there already was, since Andrew made it abundantly clear he was  _ not leaving.  _

Andrew always waited until Neil had been in his room for a sufficient enough time that must mean he was  _ asleep  _ before falling asleep himself. 

Andrew still wasn’t the type of person who offered any  _ comfort _ , but he suspected Neil wouldn’t have wanted it even if he did. 

He noticed Neil’s friends still hadn’t been called, and he could see Neil occasionally reading the messages his phone was being assaulted with before turning it off and tossing it away without responding. He supposed he was doing the right thing anyway by  _ not  _ hovering over Neil, he was just  _ existing  _ in the same space as him, and that was enough. Suddenly, Andrew could see how that, in itself, could be a comfort, something he was unfamiliar with. Something, he even, might enjoy regularly.  _ Existing _ with Neil in the same  _ space.  _

On Wednesday night, while Andrew was watching the season of Criminal Minds he’d put on after Neil fell asleep on the couch, his phone rang and he answered it quickly to not wake Neil. 

Cursing himself for not even looking at who was calling before picking it up, he whispered a “hello?” into the phone without bothering to hide what an  _ inconvenience  _ the call was. 

“Wow, that was  _ fast,  _ I was expecting at  _ least  _ 3 calls before a pick-up!” 

Andrew lowered the volume on his phone while glancing over at Neil who was still sleeping, thankfully, a hand on Sir’s back and King laying on his feet.  _ Good, _ he thought, he would’ve flown to Germany just to kill Nicky for waking him up right now. 

Sleeping on Neil’s couch had revealed to Andrew just how many times Neil wakes up in the middle of the night from nightmares, and Andrew knew last night that  _ neither  _ of them had slept practically at all. He had lain awake on Neil’s couch remembering that their bedrooms technically shared a wall, and  wondered how many times it had come to be that him and Neil were both sitting up in bed shaking the horrors out of their heads at the same time, on opposite sides of the wall.

Andrew got up carefully from the chair and shuffled away from the couch to the other side of the table and towards the door. He  _ knew  _ opening it would wake Neil, and even if by miracle it didn't, it would definitely disturb the cats, who in turn would  _ wake Neil,  _ so he stood as close to it as he could and faced the couch so he could gauge Neil’s level of sleep while he got rid of his cousin as quickly as possible. 

“What do you want, Nicky,” he whispered into the phone. 

“Why are you whispering?” Nicky said with absolutely no change in volume. 

Andrew growled and shushed Nicky through the phone. 

Nicky repeated his question, whispering himself this time, “why are we whispering?”

“Neil’s asleep.” Andrew said without elaboration. 

Unfortunately, this was the wrong choice, because Nicky would  _ not  _ be letting that go easily. 

Not as easily as he let go the fact he was supposed to be whispering, it seemed, as he perked up and went “Neil! Is there something going on between you two?! I  _ knew  _ it I TOLD Erik and he didn’t believe me he said I should leave i—”

“Shhhh,” Andrew said again, losing patience he didn’t have to begin with.

“Sorry, sorry, jeez. Are you two a thing?” 

Andrew resisted the urge to gag into the phone at the suggestion that he and Neil were a “thing;”  they were  _ not,  _ they were just  _ them.  _

Andrew decided to stop entertaining this line of questioning. “Isn’t it like 3 am in Germany?”

Nicky sighed, dramatically, which was the only way he knew how, and said “You are no fun, yes, it is, and what abou—” 

“Then goodnight, Nicky,” Andrew said with finality and hung up the phone. He realized after he didn’t know  _ why  _ his cousin had called him at 3 am, and then he remembered he didn’t care. Nicky would call him back tomorrow if it was important. He would probably call again tomorrow even if it  _ wasn’t  _ important. He was not concerned. 

Neil was still asleep on the couch, so he sat back down, but he wasn’t watching the episode that played on the TV anymore. 

____________

On Friday, Andrew woke up early as fuck again when Neil started shuffling around in his room and then came out wearing his usual running clothes. 

He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes for a second before sitting up on the couch and assessing Neil with a look. 

Neil had a look about him that Andrew hadn’t realized was different the last few days until right then, when he saw it was back. He didn’t seem to have anything on him besides his clothes, so Andrew didn’t think it was likely he was  _ running _ . 

Even so, Andrew made direct eye contact with Neil until he felt the tension in the air disperse and felt calm enough about Neil going for a run, knowing he wouldn’t bother trying with Andrew still in his apartment if he wasn’t well enough to. 

He did mock pat his pockets until Neil copied his motion and pulled out his phone showing Andrew  _ yes  _ he had it on him. 

So Andrew nodded slowly, not in permission—Neil didn’t need his permission to do  _ anything _ , Andrew was not in the business of taking choices away from people such as had been done to him—but more in acknowledgement. 

He grabbed King from where she was lounging in the sunspot under the window and followed Neil out the door. Neil walked past Andrew’s apartment towards the elevator bay as Andrew unlocked his door, but Andrew didn’t go inside until he could no longer see Neil behind the closing elevator doors. 

That night, Andrew got back from a late shift at Eden’s just after 2:30 and collapsed into his own bed for the first time in days, relaxed knowing he’d get a real night’s sleep and that Neil had returned.

____________

But then Andrew woke up Saturday around 11, and just knew that something was  _ off.  _ He didn’t have a particular reason to, which confused him, so he elected to ignore it for the first part of his morning. 

He got up, showered, dressed, and made breakfast for him and King, before setting about cleaning up. He had barely been in his apartment for the past week, but that didn’t matter when it was  _ last  _ weekend he was supposed to clean yet didn’t when he got called into being Neil’s ward. 

By the time it was one, the feeling that something was off hadn’t gone away. It wasn’t a bad day, nothing like that; he just  _ knew  _ there was something he was  _ missing.  _

He decided he’d text Neil and see if Neil would come grocery shopping with him which was the only other thing he had left to do. 

**[1:13] A: Going shopping. You coming?**

Now, Andrew knew Neil was normally abysmal at answering his phone, but on a Saturday when he had nothing to do Neil would usually reply at least within an hour, so by the time it was well past two, Andrew had to try hard to actively ignore the sense of dread he’d been feeling all day as it came to fruition in the form of this unanswered text. 

He gave Neil until 2:30 to answer until he decided he would go knock on his door.

He told himself he’d go over at 2:30, but he didn’t get up to knock on Neil’s door until 2:45, refusing to acknowledge that something had happened, because if it had, it’d be  _ his fault.  _

One  _ stupid fucking morning  _ Neil gets up to go for a run, and Andrew assumes he’s, what,  _ fine? _ Andrew never really ‘lets his guard down’—a product of an unconventionally unpleasant childhood—but he had  _ let his guard down _ in the sense that he let Neil act like he was okay until Andrew believed him, and he’s such an  _ idiot  _ for falling for it. 

So, no, he didn’t go check Neil’s room right at 2:30, lest he had to come to terms with Neil having left, and accept that Andrew had let him. 

The extra fifteen minutes did nothing, though.

Because when Andrew knocked on Neil’s door, he received no answer. 

He waited five minutes before knocking again, and then another two to see if anyone would open it, before banging his hand angrily at the door and its lack of explanation. 

Still standing outside Neil’s door, Andrew called Neil’s phone until he realized he could  _ hear it _ ring. He looked up and down the hallway but it was empty; putting his ear to the door, he redialed, but the only thing it did was confirm what he’d been hoping he’d imagined: not only was Neil’s apartment empty, but his phone was locked inside. Neil hadn’t taken it with him.

At this, he felt something shift. He buried his own twisted sense of responsibility in favor of being blindly savagely  _ angry  _ at Neil Josten for leaving in the middle of the night and choosing to leave his phone behind.  It was so like Neil and unlike Neil at the same time that Andrew didn’t even know who it was that left, and if they would return. 

The rest of his day passed in a blur. He sat on his couch with his TV playing something but elected instead to stare out his window and at Neil’s closed curtains. King had settled himself on Andrew’s lap, possibly sensing something was up, and slept soundly as Andrew gripped the fur on her back just to  _ feel  _ something. 

He thought about a lot and also nothing at all. It had been dark for at least an hour when he realized he remembered waking up that morning as Neil left for his run, but not when Neil returned.

Andrew was not a person who would sleep deep enough to miss that, and certainly not one to wake up groggy enough to forget it. Even besides the memory, Andrew was conditioned to be  _ awake  _ the second he woke up. He always woke up twice every morning; the first time when Neil left to go run, and the second when he returned.

Andrew had only woken up once that morning.

_ So, he did run. _

He was in the middle of eating—without actually tasting any of—his dinner when his phone vibrated with a text, and he picked it up immediately. 

**[7:04] UNKNOWN: Feed Sir for me, would you?**

Swallowing the relief he felt knowing it was from Neil so that he could make room for the resentment, he bit down and typed back with bitter fervor, and possibly, though he’d never admit it, desperation. 

**[7:04] A: Only for tonight.**

_ Only for tonight,  _ Andrew said, in his own way demanding Neil be there to feed Sir himself tomorrow; that he come back to do so. From anyone else, the text would read like a clarification, a simple question about a task; like asking your boss to confirm which font they wanted the newsletter to be: it was, in disguise and by design, an innocent question.

It was not an innocent question. He added punctuation and phrased it as a statement  _ rather  _ than a question with intention; Andrew could almost picture Neil’s wince and feel him interpret the anger with which Andrew had sent the message. 

They both knew that if Neil didn’t show back up tomorrow that Andrew would feed sir. No part of him was cruel, he was not going to let Sir starve if Neil decided to keep running and leave Andrew behind with the cat. 

It didn’t matter, the question was just as much  _ not  _ about Sir as it was topically  _ about Sir.  _

The question was, really,  _ only for tonight,  _ because Neil would not get away with doing this another time. There would be not  _ next time  _ Neil left without letting Andrew know, without bringing his phone. This was his one free pass, he’d  _ never  _ do this to Andrew again.

Neil responded within a minute and confirmed this.

**[7:05] UNKNOWN: Only for tonight.**

Andrew accepted that this was all he was going to get tonight and convinced himself it was better that he could think about what he was going to say to Neil when he returned tomorrow with more control. 

**[7:06] A: Key?**

**[7:06] UNKNOWN: Are you telling me you don’t know how to pick a lock?**

Andrew scoffed before reminding himself he was mad and turned it into a sigh. He made his way back to Neil’s apartment and checked that the hall was empty before making quick work of the lock and slipping inside. 

Sir ran up to him immediately, probably from being left alone all day, and Andrew made sure to feed him and fill his bowl with some water. 

When he went to leave again, Sir circled his legs by the door, and  _ meowed  _ loudly. He had a mouth on him, just like a certain runaway Andrew knew. 

Andrew knelt down to pet him some more and couldn’t help but feel bad about leaving him there alone again. “He’ll be back tomorrow,” he whispered to the cat, but it did nothing to calm him. The cat mewed again and Andrew said “I know, I’m not happy with him either.” 

Maybe it was the solidarity, or maybe he was just desperate to not be left alone again, but Sir used Andrew's knee to climb him and ended with his front paws on Andrew's shoulder, clinging to him. 

Andrew sighed again, but knew there was no way he was leaving Sir there now. Grabbing Sir so he wouldn’t fall, he left Neil’s apartment, brought Sir to his own, but still felt little comfort under the continuous weight of the knowledge that Neil wasn’t in the building. 

____________

Neil did return the next day, Andrew knew because he received a text asking about where Sir was while he was at the bookstore. He replied in short Sir was in his apartment and felt the familiar thrill of anxiety that he was going to get off in an hour and see Neil. 

He knew what he was going to say.

When he got to his apartment, he stopped in it quickly enough to say hello to King and grab Sir before knocking on Neil’s door.

Neil looked as he always did, but Andrew could see the unease behind his eyes, whether that was about what Andrew was going to say about the stunt he pulled yesterday or something else, he didn’t know, but it wasn’t going to stop him.

He shoved past Neil so he could put Sir down and watched as she greeted Neil enthusiastically, despite the fact that he’d left him alone for an entire day. Andrew would not do that.

Andrew starred as Neil soothed Sir and gave him all the attention he was requiring, but made no move to go anywhere, sit, speak. 

When Sir got bored and began to roam around again Neil stood up and addressed Andrew, who just continued to stare back. 

“I didn’t run.”

Andrew raised an eyebrow.  _ Off to a great start, Neil _ he thought,  _ once a liar… _

Neil looked away and then looked back to try again, “I didn’t  _ mean  _ to run.”

Better, but inevitably irrelevant.

“I  _ went  _ to just  _ go for a run _ . I was heading to that pastry shop a few blocks over, I was going to bring you breakfast for sitting on my couch all week, and I don't know, I spooked I guess.” Neil sighed and walked past Andrew to go sit on the couch, Andrew turned to follow but made no move to go anywhere, he just needed to watch Neil as he spoke. 

“I was walking towards the place, and there was this guy sitting in his car with his legs out of the open door just  _ sitting there,  _ and I  _ tried  _ not to, but I made sure to  _ watch him,  _ because I didn’t know what he was waiting for. He had a cigarette behind his ear, and he watched me  _ back,  _ which was already enough to put me on edge. I was two feet from the door when I heard this ‘pop’ noise, and just  _ froze  _ when he reached to grab something from the car. I was already looking around for the best cover, just, somewhere to  _ go,  _ and when he turned back and pulled the cigarette from behind his ear and I saw what he’d grabbed.” 

Neil took a deep breath and looked up at Andrew, “a dashboard lighter.” 

It only took Andrew a few seconds to put it together; the glare he’d been wearing melted off his face, and he felt his jaw tighten and everything suddenly just felt  _ stiff.  _

The near perfectly circular burns up and down Neil’s arms; his cheek. 

“I don’t remember running.” Neil said, with much more determination than anything else prior. “Andrew,” he said, “I didn’t run  _ on purpose.  _ By the time I realized what was happening and the panic attack I was having, I was closer to Matt and Dan’s. I knew I just had to get  _ somewhere.” _

It took him a few seconds to talk again when Andrew still didn’t move. “It was Matt’s phone I texted you from. That’s when I realized I didn’t have mine.”

Andrew wanted to scoff that it took Neil that long to notice he left it behind in the first place, but instead he focused his energy on ignoring that Neil had remembered his phone number. 

_ On purpose or not, he still ran.  _ No, that doesn’t sound fair. Andrew’s had panic attacks, he’s lost time, felt desperate. He read something once:  _ Man can do what he wills, but he cannot will what he wills.  _ Sometimes, free will is a scam. 

Andrew moved to go sit on the other side of the couch. Neil immediately turned to face him, not hiding how eager he was at Andrew’s acceptance of his story. 

Andrew sighed and thought carefully before he spoke. “You are not going to leave like that again without telling me first.” Neil looked like he was going to respond, but Andrew cut him off with a glare first. “You are going to promise you won’t, and in return I’ll do what I can to help you stay.” 

Neil seemed to accept this deal with no issues; he nodded a few times. “I wouldn’t just leave,” he paused for a second, “this.”

Andrew bristled, his reply was immediate, “there is no ‘this.’”

Neil shrugged one shoulder slightly as if it were a casual disagreement, “okay, then what is it?”

No matter how badly Andrew wanted to look away then, he knew he couldn't.  Looking away was a concession, and he couldn't give Neil that. What he could give Neil was the acknowledgment that he didn’t know either. So he said nothing, and Neil didn’t seem bothered by it. He moved them on.

“Anything else?” 

Andrew considered, “your phone has to be on you, anytime you leave, bring it.” 

Neil didn’t seem as pleased with that one, but he knew better than to argue it right now, or he must’ve, because he didn’t. Instead, he leaned back on the couch and relaxed, Andrew did no such thing. He watched Neil close his eyes and breath in and out a few times. 

Sitting on this side of Neil, the cheek with the burn was facing out towards him. Andrew felt sick, now, looking at it. He wanted to feel whoever did that to Neil squirming, under his hands. He wanted to lock Neil in his apartment so he couldn’t leave again, so no one could hurt him again. He wanted to reach out and cup his cheek, hand brushing against the scar like it did the first time he’d kissed him, but Neil’s eyes were still closed, and  he refused to touch him without Neil being aware of it. 

He settled himself back against the couch too, and drank in Neil’s presence at his side once again. Simply  _ knowing  _ Neil was  _ there, next to him, _ made him feel better than he’d felt in days, and he hated how easy it was to give in to that. 

His relaxation must have triggered something in Neil, who sat up and went “I don’t have anything because I did absolutely nothing all week, so I was going to order dinner soon, are you staying?” 

Andrew knew without looking at the clock that it couldn’t be later than mid-afternoon, probably not even five oclock. This early dinner was a ploy for Andrew to stay longer, to relax back into a routine they had crafted together, to forgive Neil a little more, and they both knew it. Andrew wasn’t distracted by it enough to tell Neil what he was thinking verbatim:  _ yes, he was staying.  _ There was nothing right now that could get him to leave. 

So he just nodded, and stayed, and as they waited for dinner Neil grabbed the remote and put on Criminal Minds, no doubt trying further to appease Andrew, who in return huffed and shook his head, but made no move to turn it off as Neil smirked that his plan was working. 

They ate and continued what they did as usual, existing in place, the  _ same  _ place, together, and at some point, Andrew began speaking again so Neil did too. Nothing that mattered, stupid hypotheticals that they’d never need, comments on the movie Andrew put on; it was something superficial with lots of car chases and action sequences that neither of them thought seemed realistic at all. 

At some point, Andrew felt Neil’s eyes burning a hole in the side of his head, so he said, “you’re missing things.” 

Neil hummed in response, unconcerned. 

“I’m not explaining whatever you miss.” 

“I’m not worried.” 

Andrew turned to look Neil in the eye, and felt like he could turn to stone under Neil’s stare. Not because it was  _ angry,  _ it was...fond, almost, and that was not something Andrew was used to. No one looked at him like that, he hardly deserved it, seldom knew what to do with it. It made his throat constrict, and it felt like more pressure than he could handle. He turned away. 

“Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

Andrew side-eyed him and Neil grinned, “fine,” he looked back at the TV, but it only lasted a few minutes. He turned towards Andrew again. “Can I kiss you?”

Andrew wanted so badly to just continue to stare at the TV, to ignore Neil, but he knew before he even moved that he wasn’t going to. 

“Yes,” he said, already turning himself towards Neil, who scooted forward to be closer to him but also so he could sit on his hands, and that made Andrew want to grit his teeth, but instead he kissed Neil with an intensity he hoped showed his irritation at the gesture, though he knew it was really gratitude. 

He kissed Neil to forget this feeling he’d had for the past few days that unforgivably resembled  _ worry.  _ He kissed Neil to prove Neil was there, and that he was  _ Neil  _ again, and not whoever had been on the couch last week, certainly not whoever had run away. He kissed Neil to forget what all the time he spent  _ not  _ kissing Neil was like, and he wished he could succeed,  he really did, but it was a futile effort; his memory was as persistent as it was accurate, and he couldn’t forget the echo that Neil left when he was absent from this place and gone. They had barely spoken all week because of Neil’s demeanor, and  _ still  _ his absence  _ echoed  _ and left everything feeling so  _ empty.  _ Andrew wasn’t used to relying on someone else for company, and he wasn’t even sure he was  _ fond  _ of it, but he ignored those things in favor of kissing Neil, here,  _ now.  _

The other times he had kissed Neil, he had felt like he was taking Neil apart piece by piece, kiss by kiss, but this time,  _ this time, _ Andrew  _ knew  _ he was putting Neil back together. He was sifting through the drama and the angst and confusion of the past few days, the past  _ week  _ and disposing of anything that wasn’t purely Neil Josten, this fucking neighbor of his who he hadn’t wanted here but had come to be in Andrew’s plane of existence anyway.

He kissed Neil for what felt like hours but was probably only a few minutes before he came back to himself; This Neil wasn’t the same person who was on his couch all of last week, and if  _ they  _ had tried to kiss Andrew—which they didn’t, because they understand—he would have said no because they were in no state of mind to try. This Neil was not them,  _ that one,  _ but Andrew was still scattered from yesterday and a little mad at himself for forgiving Neil so quickly, and knew this was all that could happen right now, so he pulled back. 

He pulled back just enough to form some space, but he didn’t let go of Neil, who hadn’t opened his eyes. He traced his thumb along the lines of Neil’s face; his jaw, chin, lips, cheek—until he slowed down over the burn on the side of Neil’s face. He leaned forward and pressed just one, last kiss there, and then dropped his hands as Neil opened his eyes. 

He said goodnight and went back to his apartment,  reminding himself again and again that there would be more time, more days spent on Neil’s couch ; things he usually didn’t count on, things that should have made him nervous with anyone, but especially so with a runaway, things he couldn’t be bothered to feel anything other than  _ expectancy  _ for. Because Neil promised.

He went to sleep, and though he knew and believed that Neil wouldn’t run again, from then on every morning when he woke to Neil leaving for his run, he found he couldn’t fall back asleep until he heard him return. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed :)) The next chapter should be the last!! It might not, I have an idea I'm not sure will fit in 6 chapters so it'd be 7 but don't get your hopes up, it'll probably still be 6!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Neil drags Andrew to a bar with his friends, there are some bad times, but then some better ones :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IM SO SORRY MY LAPTOP FUCKING BROKE. I got busy with the holidays in December and then BOOM RIGHT AFTER, my laptop literally broke. IF YOU SAW A TIKTOK OF A GIRL LAYING IN HER BED IN A GREEN ROOM TALKING ABOUT HOW HER LAPTOP BROKE IN THE MIDDLE OF WRITING FANFIC AND SHE HAD TO SEND IT TO APPLE LIKE THAT, CONGRATULATIONS, YOU FOUND BOTH MY TIKTOK AND THE FIC THAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT IN IT. I was in the middle of this chapter, the LAST chapter, chapter 6 when my laptop broke. So some poor shmucks at apple saw this fucking fic on my laptop and if being socially inept because of COVID hadn't already taken all my shame away I'd have no dignity left. ANYWAY, THANKS FOR READING THIS FAR IF YOU HAVE, I HOPE THE CHAPTER IS WORTH THE LONG WAIT.

Andrew reveled in the Friday nights he had off from Eden’s. Even if he did nothing, the simple fact that he  _ wasn’t  _ behind the bar at Eden’s was enough to make it a good night. He got to sit on the couch with King and read, or binge whatever he wanted on Netflix, try a new recipe for dinner. 

Even when he started spending a decent portion of his free time with Neil after he’d moved in, he enjoyed the Friday’s he had off. If they were both free, he still got to do the things he usually did, but with the easy company of Neil. They still sat on the couch with a cat or two, Andrew would read—sometimes to himself and others aloud—they’d watch things and eat dinner. Maybe a little of something  _ else  _ after. 

Andrew could genuinely say he  _ enjoyed  _ this no-work-on Friday routine, which is why it was so hard for him to understand  _ why  _ he’d agreed to go out with Neil and his friends. 

Andrew didn’t usually willingly put himself in situations in which he’d encounter people other than the few he considered family—Aaron, Nicky, and Kevin. He actively avoided it, actually, when possible. At the very least, Neil’s friends would be boring, at the most, they’d be overbearing. 

Andrew could survive one evening at a bar. There would be alcohol, he could drink eagerly and entertain himself by staring silently at people who asked him questions. He could study Neil’s friends and work out why he hadn’t called them during his bad week a month ago; try and work out what about these people drew in  _ Neil.  _

Andrew got ready to go on Friday night and told himself that he was going more because of what Neil had promised in return and less because of a sudden feeling to satisfy him. 

When Neil had asked him earlier that week to go, Andrew had stopped to consider. A few months ago he would have cut Neil off before he even finished asking and would have shut it down; the fact that he hadn’t already done that had quietly shocked him for a minute. What shocked him even more was the discovery that he didn’t  _ want  _ to do that. Uncomfortable with the unusual readiness to hear Neil out and consider his invitation, Andrew deflected. He had said:  _ what will I get in return?  _

And Neil had said “Anything.” 

Andrew said he would go. 

He made himself remember the  _ anything  _ he was promised in return for going as he got dressed. He hadn’t the slightest idea what he was going to ask. He had come to learn quite a bit more about Neil recently. 

Andrew has learned Neil also speaks French and a little bit of Spanish he took in college, but isn’t sure if that’s all he speaks besides the two he already discovered. Neil likes to joke and withhold from answering questions about multiple languages at a time to keep Andrew “interested” in asking; Every time there's a new language acquisition Andrew will ask “is that all?” and Neil will grin and respond “you tell me.” He’s learned about Chris and Stefan, but isn’t naive enough to think these are the only pseudonyms in Neil’s past. 

He could certainly ask for another language demonstration or for another  _ Neil,  _ but maybe he would find another way to have Neil pay him back this time. 

By the time Neil had given up on trying to find a suitable outfit and Andrew had picked one out for him, they were on track for being late. Neither of them seemed very worried about it though as they made their way to leave the building. 

Andrew exited the elevator in the lobby and didn’t make it more than three steps further. He felt Neil stop short behind him and, as graceful as he should’ve been being athletic, he almost fell over in the struggle. Andrew almost huffed in enjoyment in an attempt to tease Neil until glancing over his shoulder alerted him to the fact that Neil had only stopped short so clumsily in effort to not hit into or touch Andrew while he did. 

Andrew grit his teeth and turned back around ignoring the gesture altogether. He looked back towards his reason for stopping and heard Neil sigh as he located it as well. 

Claire—the co-op board demon as Neil had dubbed her—was standing in the lobby typing away on her phone. Oddly, Andrew was reminded of that first time him and Neil had  _ really  _ spoken, when Claire was interrogating him about smoking. That seemed so long ago now, the beginning of the year. Andrew scolded himself for sounding somewhat  _ sentimental.  _

Claire looked up at the sound of the elevator doors closing and put her business smile on. 

“Andrew, Neil!” she greeted as if they were the people she was absolute  _ most  _ excited to see right then, but only if she were a character in a play who was scripted to do so. 

Neither Andrew or Neil responded verbally. Andrew, acting bored as always, made no indication he had noticed Claire’s presence, even though it was clear he had stopped walking because she was standing there, incredibly impossible to miss. Neil, who had moved to stand next to Andrew, nodded a hello. 

“I have to say,” Claire said and Andrew almost cut her off with a plea of “no, you don’t” and pulled Neil out the door with him, but he used a semblance of self control instead. “I’m glad you two are...friendly.” 

Andrew raised an eyebrow; he wasn’t sure if Claire sensed what she was getting at at all, or if she was just glad to see Andrew  _ finally  _ embracing the “welcoming and friendly environment” of the building after years of living there. He wanted to know so he could prove her wrong, but Neil beat him to it. 

“Andrew doesn’t do ‘friendly,’” Neil said, smirking, no doubt because of the private joke he knew Andrew would understand. It was the first thing he’d said to Neil. “Neighborly is more like it.” 

Andrew privately enjoyed Claire’s smile growing rigid, like it usually did when she conversed with one of them—like it always did when she conversed with  _ both  _ of them  _ together.  _

“Of course,” she said, though it was more diplomatic than understanding. 

“We’re gonna be late for something, so,” Neil said and moved to keep walking by Claire and out the door. Andrew didn’t rush but he went to follow. 

As Neil made it to the door and grabbed the handle, Claire called out from behind them again. 

They both turned to look back. 

“I just thought you’d both want to know that the individual who had been smoking seems to have stopped! I must have got the message through to them after all.” Her smile was genuine this time, even though it was clear she still thought Andrew was the person who had been smoking in the building. 

The fact that she was right didn’t deter him, but he absolutely couldn’t have cared less what she thought he did or didn’t do. 

What he did mind was the fact that she thought  _ she  _ had been the reason he stopped smoking and dropping cigarettes out his window. Sensing that Andrew was going to do something to jeopardize his lease agreement, Neil spoke up quickly again. “Goodbye, Claire,” and didn’t wait to watch her reaction to his blatant dismissal as he pushed out the door, only pausing to make sure Andrew followed him. 

Andrew waited a moment longer staring Claire down, taunting her to  _ say it _ , but she didn’t, so he followed Neil out. 

He  _ hated  _ that Claire thought he had stopped littering the courtyard with cigarette butts because of the pressure from her threats. Claire’s threats were about as weak as a child's handshake; Andrew wouldn’t have conceded to her because it wasn’t worth it. What  _ was  _ worth it was Neil trading information for Andrew’s promise that he’d start smoking less—a step closer to stopping. 

When he first proposed it, Andrew had just stared at him. After Neil gave the usual arguments about cancer and living longer, Andrew’s blank stare turned into a look that said  _ idiot _ ; Neil would have to try harder than appealing to Andrew’s sense of self-preservation, especially since Neil had made a habit out of breathing in second-hand smoke, which was almost as bad. Neil rolled his eyes and had amended his reasoning. “Fine,” he’d said, “then do it to stay here, because eventually Claire’s going to work up some nerve and kick you out.” 

_ Do it to stay here _ , Neil had said,  _ with me,  _ he’d meant but hadn’t pushed Andrew by adding. 

And so Andrew agreed. That was two weeks ago now, and Andrew was seriously reconsidering his decision. Quitting  _ sucked.  _

But, he couldn’t ignore the implications behind Neil’s trade, following the rules to stay here  _ with Neil  _ meant that Neil intended on staying too.

____________

They were over half an hour late when they finally arrived. It was a bar Andrew had heard about before. The manager at Eden’s was always stealing ideas from the other bars in the area, so he knew a good deal. He thought his manager should just put in the extra brain power to come up with his own promotional nights, but the guy seemed in favor of the lazy method of half-assed plagiarism.

They walked in and Andrew watched as Neil scanned the room. To anyone else, it would have looked like he was scouting for his friends or an open table; Andrew knew better. 

He stopped next to Neil and without turning to look at him said, “exits?” 

“Front door, side door at the end of the bar, probably another fire exit out the back if in a bind. Two windows, both high off the ground and thin, but you should be able to get on a table and shimmy through with enough time.” Neil turned to look at Andrew and grinned looking far too pleased with himself. 

Andrew poked his finger into Neil’s cheek and turned him away. “Rabbit,” he muttered. 

Turns out they didn’t have to look for Neil’s friends, because they’d spotted him and called them over. It didn’t get past Andrew that when they got to the table, Neil let Andrew have the only seat left with it’s back to the wall, himself taking the other.

Introductions went smoothly, or as smoothly as they could when Andrew stood there and responded to none of the offered pleasantries other than eye contact. If anyone was bothered by this it was only briefly as Neil who seemed to predict this happening moved them on from there quickly with a question he had obviously queued up. 

While Allison was in the middle of describing her new line—she did something in the fashion industry Andrew had deduced—to Neil whom, let’s be frank, wasn’t understanding a word, Andrew pondered his other friends.

The couple, Dan and Matt, were the ones Neil ended up staying with last month when he had run, and Andrew knew Matt had been Neil’s first real friend. He met the others through him. Despite his large size, he seemed harmless enough, as did his wife, although they’ve clearly been trying to figure Andrew out since the moment he walked in with Neil. 

In fact, both them and Allison, the tall blonde speaking now, had been staring Andrew down the entire time, which he’d expected. Renee, Allison's girlfriend, was the only one  _ not _ trying to size him up, which is how he knew she was probably the only one who could. 

He’d only been forced into a minimal amount of conversation so far. He was asked questions about his job, about how he met Neil. He answered them when he had to and with as much attention as he could be bothered to muster, but Renee—who Andrew decided he definitely tolerated the most—veered the conversation in a different direction, and Andrew didn’t pretend not to know it was for his benefit.

“You look nice tonight, Neil,” she said, smiling warmly. 

Allison put down her drink and swallowed quickly to beat everyone else into this particular conversation. “Yes,” she affirmed, “I’m impressed, you did good this time, kid.” 

Andrew could picture the things Neil had probably worn the last time they’d been out together and—as much as he hated Neil’s wardrobe as well—liked the thought of Allison being deterred by his outfits when they were in public together; it amused him slightly, he’d admit.

“Thanks, but Andrew picked it out actually.” If there was any surprise to this sentence, Allison cleaned it up quickly by making eye contact with Andrew and responding to him, instead.

“Well, you have taste I’ll give you that.” She held up her drink in a mock toast to him and took another large sip.

Andrew wasn’t sure what these people thought the nature of his and Neil’s relationship was, and he means relationship in the  _ barest  _ sense of the word, as in,  _ relation to each other.  _ He supposed he wouldn’t know what to call it either, and possibly that meant they knew nothing or maybe just some vague comments.  _ There was nothing for them to name _ , Andrew chided himself, but it felt irrelevant in wake of the past month or so since Neil’s bad week. 

Either way, he didn’t care what they knew, evidently, so he moved on. 

They’d been there for about two hours and Andrew had already had three drinks when Dan had used the lull in the conversation to say, “so, Neil, have you started apartment hunting yet?” 

That quickly pulled Andrew’s attention back to the table. He turned and stared at Neil sitting next to him. 

For a moment, Neil’s face did the scrunched up thing, and Andrew felt a smidge of relief, but he squashed it before he got his hopes up. 

“Have I what?” Neil asked.

“Apartment hunting,” Dan clarified, as if that were the problem with the sentence and not the missing context. “Your place only has a 6-month lease right? Don’t you have to re-sign in May if you’re staying past June?”

“Oh, right,” Matt said, joining the conversation. “I forgot you said that the last time, we’ll have a new address soon won’t we?” 

Andrew knew what they were referring to; Neil had said it himself the first time he told Andrew about his past. Neil never resigned a lease; he always moves once it’s up to feel like he’s still staying active. It makes him feel like he’s still moving, less anxious because he’s not staying in one place. 

Andrew  _ knew  _ this, but he hadn’t let himself think about it since that night. He knew the shortest lease offered in his building was 6-months, and he knew that Neil arrived in January, and here they were halfway through April. If Neil was staying, he’d have to resign in May, and if he didn’t, his lease was up in June, and he’d move out. He’d  _ leave.  _

He  _ knew  _ they offered 6-month leases, he’d just never considered that Neil had signed one. And now he  _ is  _ considering it, as well as the fact that in about two months, Neil would be gone. He felt far away from the Neil of two weeks ago who was offering him information in exchange of quitting smoking so he’d be able to  _ keep his apartment.  _ The one next to  _ Neil’s own. _

Andrew continued to stare Neil down from beside him, but he was still only looking at his profile. He nodded at Matt’s comment. 

“Oh, yeah,” he said, as if he too forgot his lease was almost up and he’d have to begin looking for somewhere to live soon. “I’ll let you guys know when I do.” 

Andrew wanted to be mad at Neil’s friends for encouraging this bad habit—this  _ rabbit-like  _ habit—of Neil’s. No, scratch that, he  _ was  _ mad. Because what if Neil really  _ had _ forgotten about his lease ending until they’d brought it up? What if Neil finally felt rested enough to stay until they ushered him back into old habits? He was pissed at them for appeasing this behavior, for doing nothing more for Neil than encouraging him to get a cat. That’s the best advice they could offer? And look how fucking well that worked. 

He knew what this misguided blame aimed towards Neil’s friends was really; it was  _ fear.  _ He felt it often enough considering it was one of the only accessible emotions he had left in his arsenal for some of the more recent years of his life. It was leaning out his window to smoke, or better yet, standing on the edge of the roof. Riding the elevator at that bank in town that had glass walls so you could see out as you were rising, rising,  _ rising.  _ Andrew was scapegoating Neil’s friends because he didn’t want to believe that even if his friends didn’t remind him, Neil would still be moving, on his own volition, when his lease came to an end in June.

He let himself be mad at them for a few seconds more before he let his target switch to Neil. Neil, who had told him he would stay. Who  _ hadn’t  _ told him he was leaving in two months, and he must be because he didn’t deny it when they’d asked.

Neil, who was sitting right next to him and  _ still  _ wouldn’t turn and meet his eye. Neil never avoided Andrew’s gaze like this, not unless it was a concession, because he didn’t like to back down. Andrew’s hand tightened around his glass, and his eyes narrowed. He refused to look away from Neil, but Neil never turned to meet his eyes. 

____________

Andrew didn’t spend any time with Neil the following Saturday. Or Sunday. Or Monday for that matter. 

Partially, it was to punish Neil for not telling him he was going to leave. The rest of it was Andrew distancing himself and continuing to exist as he had before he’d met Neil, but there were unintended consequences; life before Neil was further away than he’d thought it was, and breaking certain habits to get back there was hard. 

It’s not exactly weird that he didn’t see Neil on Saturday; it was a little out of the ordinary but they’ve both been busy before and went a day or two without seeing each other despite their forced close quarters. But by Monday it was impossible for Neil not to have caught on. 

Andrew didn’t care whether or not Neil caught on. It was better if he did, though, because then maybe he’d have the common sense to leave Andrew alone in return. 

Andrew should have known this was wishful thinking  _ before  _ he’d received the first text. 

**[7:13] N: a lasagna is so much bigger than I thought it was do you want some?**

Andrew stared at his phone when the text came in. 

Neil. Neil and his almost complete inability to be a whole person, which should not be as endearing as it was. Neil who was also an abysmal cook. Andrew knew if he received this text a week ago he would have been over at Neil’s in five to see the monstrosity of a lasagna Neil had cooked and then probably would’ve ended up making them something else or ordering take-out. 

This was not last week, this was now, T-minus two months (less) til Neil would be gone. He tossed his phone back onto the couch, where it startled King into a  _ meow,  _ and went back to his book. 

It didn’t take long for the second text to come in. 

**[7:35] N: you missed out. It actually wasn’t half bad.**

Andrew seriously doubted that. He took a deep breath and turned his phone on vibrate. 

Which was ultimately worse, because the next time Neil texted him, he felt it vibrate through the whole couch. 

He sighed and picked up his phone. 

**[7:58] N: Andrew.**

Finally picked up on it then, did he? It was not Andrew’s problem that he was late to the game. Neil always did have a talent for understanding you just enough to rip you apart, but completely miss any other social cues not of use to him.

It really wasn’t his fault, but damn it should be. Andrew grit his teeth and put down his book. He grabbed the tv remote and put on a movie in the background to drown out the silence he was having a hard time processing. He picked up his book again and tried to keep reading. 

By the fourth text, he’d given up completely on trying to ignore it. 

He grabbed his phone the second it buzzed and looked at the text he  _ knew  _ would be from Neil. 

**[8:14] N: at least let me explain.**

No.

Logically Andrew knew it was a perfectly reasonable request, but that didn’t mean he had to indulge it. Giving Neil the opportunity to explain would just be inviting himself into more of a disaster. It would be willingly putting himself in a situation in which Neil is going to tell him precisely why he isn’t enough to keep him here, in this building in this side of town in  _ this  _ apartment, and how that’s why he’s moving. 

Maybe he’d go the route of  _ you knew I would be leaving when my lease was up  _ and gaslight Andrew into putting too much weight on a relationship they weren’t even in that Andrew himself refused to name. 

That didn’t sound very Neil, but Andrew was still going to avoid the confrontation if he could. 

No reason for him to listen to Neil tell him why he hadn’t mentioned the fact he was leaving; it wouldn’t change the outcome. 

Neil would still go. 

He turned his phone off completely this time, and shoved it under the pillow on the other side of the couch. It happened to be the pillow King was sleeping on, and he swatted at Andrew’s hand for waking him up. 

Andrew glared at the cat, and then turned back to his book.

He read for another hour and a half before giving up and going to bed, but if you checked the book, he’d only managed to get five pages further. 

____________

He didn’t see much of Neil for the rest of that week. Some accidental elevator rides when leaving or entering apartments at the same time. Neil would start a conversation and Andrew would put in the most minimal effort possible and walk briskly away before Neil could try and explain anything. 

It was halfway through the next week, and Andrew was still in a miserable mood. He’d snapped at Nicky on the phone for no reason the other day and in turn had fought with Aaron over text about it, and things were not getting any better. 

It was now turning May, and Andrew wanted to feel relieved at the thought that Neil would be gone soon, but no matter how hard he tried he just felt more and more like a stone sinking to the bottom of a river. 

Things got worse, then, but for different reasons. 

The humidity at the end of April and beginning of May was making Andrew’s dark relatively tight clothes stick to his skin every time he left the apartment. Everything he wore felt confining and seemed to suffocate him. Wearing no clothes was worse; he was exposed, in danger. So he put on what he could stomach and tried to remain indoors as much as possible, swallowing gags when he went outside as if he were being strangled. 

He wasn’t just having a bad day, he was having a bad week. Things escalated from there and he texted his boss at the bookstore that he was sick and wouldn’t be coming in. 

The thought of standing in a bookstore and stocking shelves was enough to make him nauseous. His back to the shelf behind him while stacking in front of him, two ends to either side of the aisle; too easy to be blocked in, even accidentally by customers just trying to shop. The register would be no better, he’d then be forced into interacting with other people, and if he opened his mouth he wasn’t sure anything would come out. 

There was something different about this time, though. Something was off—besides all the obvious. 

He usually felt repulsed by any other presence when he was like this, but that didn’t seem to be the case. 

Or, he should specify, it didn’t seem to be the case  _ for everyone. _

He thought about two months ago, sitting in Neil’s apartment everyday while Neil mentally fought his own battles, and how nothing was required of either of them besides their existing there, in the same room. Andrew had never understood the benefit of that before Neil had asked him to provide it, and he remembered thinking that he could see how it was comforting. 

He hadn’t really been sleeping, so he was already awake as Neil got up for his morning run, and he found himself counting the minutes waiting for Neil to return, using it as something to distract himself with. A menial task he can focus on rather than thinking himself in circles until he's sick. 

Neil got back half an hour later, and Andrew was so out of it, he for a moment was shocked at the fact that it was Neil’s apartment door that had opened and not his own. Andrew hadn’t spoken to Neil—at least about anything of substance—in almost two weeks now, so there was no reason Neil would be returning here to Andrew’s apartment and not his own, but Andrew had lost himself in counting the seconds turning into minutes waiting for Neil’s return he had forgotten about the distance he’d put there, and almost didn’t care anymore about the reason why. 

He thought about what would have happened if Neil had come here instead of gone there. He would have known something was wrong with Andrew right away, though Andrew was too little present to have been falsely bothered by that. He would have sat on the chair by the window King sometimes likes to sunbathe in. Probably made Andrew eat something for breakfast—the only meal Neil is trusted to cook—and put something on the TV. 

Andrew wouldn’t have watched it, but he supposes it’s better than staring at it while turned off. He remembers that’s what Neil was doing on his bad day. 

For a second, while Andrew imagined this, he felt the slight ease of his breathing, and the loud static in his head lower. 

The thought of having to go to work before he’d cancelled had been enough to almost make him physically sick, but the thought of Neil just walking into the room and sitting down made Andrew feel slightly less tense, even though another human presence should do the opposite. 

He was too tired to be mad. Too tired to think about how he wasn’t supposed to want or need anyone. How he’s had plenty of bad days on his own and will get through this one fine. Too tired to warn himself this was a bad idea.

So he texted Neil. 

**[9:11] A: the door is unlocked.**

____________

He didn’t get a reply from Neil and he didn’t expect one, but only a few minutes later there was a soft knock on his door and a meek “Andrew?” 

He didn’t move to acknowledge Neil’s entrance, just continued his sombre laying on the couch while Neil shut the door, greeted King, and moved his way into the living room where Andrew was immobilized. 

He didn’t ask what was wrong, he didn’t speak any more, and he didn’t bring up the fact that after two weeks of not speaking, Neil really didn’t have to put up with Andrew’s horrid company; in fact, he had every right  _ not  _ to stay. 

But he did anyway.

Because he’s  _ Neil. _

And when in the months that they’ve known each other has Andrew ever made an effort to ask for some form of comfort or personal  _ want.  _

Andrew, for the most part, did feel slightly more at ease with Neil taking up space in his apartment. He turned the TV on and occasionally would glance at Andrew in a way he probably thought was covert—spoiler alert, it wasn’t, even dissociating Andrew noticed every look—to check in. After an hour he got up and went to the kitchen only to return with some tea for himself and hot chocolate for Andrew, who accepted it wordlessly and went back to doing nothing. 

There was, however, a small part of Andrew that was tearing himself apart for reaching out to Neil  _ pathetically  _ like  _ this  _ after weeks of nothing and how un-fucking-fair that was.  _ No wonder Neil is leaving  _ he’d thought,  _ if you treat him like shit and then still make him take care of you.  _

But Neil wouldn’t see it that way, Andrew knew. Neil would clinically put everything else on hold for the moment, and just sit there in this room with Andrew because he knew Andrew had been uncomfortable enough to admit he  _ wanted  _ Neil’s presence. Yet Neil isn’t the kind of person to rollover and take shit, which means Andrew might as well have invited Neil to bring up their issues the next time they saw each other. And Andrew was not one to leave a debt unsettled, and though he knew Neil would have come without the expectation of anything owed, he also knows that’s how Andrew works, and would definitely take advantage to get one decent conversation in. 

Maybe that was wrong, still. Maybe. Andrew knew that. He was still too tired to care. 

So Neil deserved better, this was not some illusion he was coming to realize. He had known this all along.

He closed his eyes and listened to the sounds of the movie that was playing from the TV. He did not sleep, just listened and tried to drown out any leftover thoughts that had been running through his head. 

He heard the credit music begin to roll eventually and opened his eyes, Neil was turning the movie off, and then facing him in his chair. 

“I should go,” he said, as if everything was totally normal. Andrew knew he had work tomorrow and also knew that this sentence was a courtesy more than anything else.

He stared back in response. Neil nodded, once, and then got up and headed towards the door.

When he got there, he turned to look back just once at Andrew still laying on the couch, and then he was gone. 

____________

It doesn’t take Neil long to seek Andrew out when a few days later he notices him leaving his apartment again, and in a clear better state. 

Andrew didn’t think it would; he did indeed draw a white flag first by inviting Neil to witness his vulnerability.

Andrew doesn’t believe in regret, and so when he was once again in clear mind he didn’t feel anything about what his cloudy brain had let him do in time of need. Well, that’s not true, he didn’t  _ regret  _ it, but he didn’t feel  _ nothing.  _ He was fucking annoyed.

He was annoyed he had given in to something he’d never before needed; comfort from another person. He was annoyed that Neil was the kind of person who sat there and comforted Andrew even though he knew Andrew didn’t deserve his company at the present time. Mostly, he was annoyed that it worked. 

Andrew had dealt with plenty of bad days before, all of them alone, on his own terms; never even dreaming about letting another person in the same room, much less anywhere near him. He didn’t know why it worked with Neil, and he didn’t want to dwell on it. 

Because he didn’t think—no, he  _ knew— _ it wasn’t going to work with anyone else.

And Neil was leaving. 

Fine, he didn’t need to dwell on it, but he knew there was no way to go about ignoring Neil after this, even he wasn’t that shameless. He knew Neil knew he operated in deals and fair trades, and he also knew Neil would use the leverage he had to understand what was happening here.

Or, as usual, Neil would choose to surprise him. 

Infuriating.

It was Saturday when Neil knocked on his door and asked if Andrew wanted to accompany him to the grocery store. 

It was something they would have done two weeks ago, before that night out with Neil’s friends. The normalcy in the suggestion pulled at Andrew’s insides. If Neil was leaving, and this invitation to the grocery store was his way of luring Andrew into that conversation, then Andrew didn’t really want to accept. For starters, though he knew he had gotten himself into this spot, he was still extremely displeased at the thought of talking about any of it. He grappled with the emotion long enough to recognize what it was— _ fear.  _

What would become of Andrew after Neil had gone?

He should have known better than to do this again. 

Secondly, the thought of this unpleasantness tarnishing a semi-regular weekend routine that he’d come to enjoy annoyingly made him even more uneasy. But that was way more sentimental than he could bear, and internally he choked on his own patheticness. 

He grabbed his wallet and his keys and followed Neil out the door. 

Despite every way he was continually imagining the conversation would go, the topic never arose. Every time he thought  _ this is it, the segue,  _ it didn’t happen. 

Neil and Andrew walked through the grocery store for the first half of their time there in comfortable silence. Though the silence was comfortable, Andrew was not; he spent much of the time wondering when Neil would finally just bring it up, yet Neil seemed blissfully unaware. The second half of their time there was filled with the usual posturing hypotheticals. Something about a global pandemic that Andrew only half paid attention to. The other half of him was still preoccupied. 

At one point, they’d stopped so Neil could describe the kind of chicken he was going to attempt to make that night, while perusing the frozen meat freezer section, and it took Andrew about halfway through the conversation to realize Neil was inviting him to join in. 

He would normally jump at the opportunity to watch Neil fail miserably at cooking, but he knew if the grocery store was the build-up the dinner was likely the conversation. 

Despite his hesitancy, he couldn’t pass up on this possible last dinner with Neil, and so he insinuated how horribly the night was going to go in reference to Neil’s cooking, and Neil smiled as he read between the lines and knew his invitation was accepted, though Andrew was cursing himself the entire time. 

If the grocery store was a normal affair, Andrew didn’t know what to call dinner. 

Neil’s chicken had actually come out well enough, and Andrew only had to swat at Neil and step in twice to stop him from burning various food groups and/or himself. 

Conversation carried as usual, or was non-existent as usual, and the feeling of being in Neil’s apartment after so long was satisfying in a way Andrew hoped to lock down and ignore. 

Sunday morning, when Andrew woke to Neil leaving for his morning run, he had a hard time falling back asleep and instead replayed the night before in his head. The night had ended as mundanely as it began, them sitting on the couch, Neil watching some sport on TV Andrew couldn’t be bothered with, and Andrew reading at the other end. Andrew wasn’t entirely sure he didn’t dream the whole thing. 

Surely Neil hadn’t not mentioned their two weeks of nothing  _ at all?  _ Though it seems he had. And that left Andrew still anticipating it. 

Neil came back from his run with pastries from the bakery he sometimes went by for Andrew, and Andrew felt sick looking at them, thinking Neil was somehow either softening a blow or appeasing a guilty conscience. 

Despite this, he still ate two pastries and watched Neil play with King on his living room floor.

He finished eating but made no move to leave the table. He watched Neil laughing on the floor while he swatted at King as the cat swatted back. If Andrew tried to do that he’d leave with scratches all over, despite him and the cats relationship. Neil, apparently, would not suffer the same penalty. 

Seeing Neil lounging there on his floor, laughing, his hair falling slightly into his face, Andrew re-felt every ounce of fear and hurt he’d experienced at the prospect of Neil leaving. His surroundings blurred, and he felt nothing but the seat underneath him and saw nothing but  _ Neil.  _ For the range of emotion he was going through then—the most he’d  _ felt  _ in a while—he could have been back at the bar with Neil’s friends around the table for all he knew. 

He was all at once glad he was done eating because he thought if he put anything in his mouth that moment, he’d choke. 

The fear of Neil leaving had hardened in his stomach to something else. Something uglier, less manageable. It was the heavy weight of  _ dread _ setting in, dread that Neil would really be gone soon. 

Blink, and he was in a crowded bar, Neil refusing to meet his eyes. 

Blink again, he is in his apartment, and Neil is bathing in sunlight on the floor as Andrew tries to remember every single minute of this day, thinking it might never happen again, and he doesn't think anything will be as bright as Neil’s hair reflecting the beam of light coming through the window, or his laugh as King fails to tap his arm.

He closes his eyes, but he can still see it all happening right in front of him as if they were wide open. 

That traitorial, dreading part of him, then brought up from his subconscious Neil’s friends brazen prying about his life, including his soon to be new address.

He doesn’t believe in regret, but he can’t imagine why he’d let Neil drag him to that. 

_ Because he promised you anything.  _

_ Anything.  _

A word that knows no bounds. 

Andrew knows Neil wouldn’t break any deal offered to him by Andrew within reason, and he suddenly wonders how far reason stretches. 

How much, really, is too much? At this moment, he doesn’t care. If Neil doesn’t accept the terms then he doesn’t, and Andrew can know that it’s settled, he’s leaving and he will have to just fucking forget about it. Because it seems Neil isn’t going to bring it up himself. 

As he opens his eyes again to see the sight has barely changed, he breathes in deliberately to begin. 

But before he does, Neil says “what? What’s this?” and reaches a hand under the TV stand that King is currently halfway underneath. 

Neil pulls his arm back out, King following his lead, and holds up a crumpled piece of paper. He opens it up, and suddenly Andrew knows before he even turns exactly what it is. 

It is the flier from when Neil moved in, alerting all the residents of their new neighbor. The one Andrew let King toy with until he’d pushed it under the stand. 

Neil turns a cheeky grin on Andrew and says “Well, that’s not frightening in the least.”

Andrew gives a dry huff before responding “Don’t flatter yourself, it was for the damn cat.”

“Ouch,” Neil says, and re-crumples the paper to toss it to King, who had been following it’s every move since leaving the safety of the stand. 

“I don’t blame you,” Neil begins again, “it is rather tacky isn’t it.”

“It’s Claire,” Andrew deadpans, and Neil grins in agreement as reply. 

Andrew watches Neil watch King as he comes dangerously close to pushing the ball under the TV stand again just seconds after it was freed, and feels his resolve slipping. 

Without consulting his brain he says “Neil.”

Ever attentive to Andrew, Neil turns his head quickly and sits up in his direction. His knees bent loosely and his arms resting on them, looking up at where Andrew is seated, waiting for more. 

“Your friends, the bar,” Andrew says, hoping it’s enough to clue Neil in to what he’s thinking about. 

Neil looks momentarily uncomfortable as he considers the night, and after a few seconds Andrew gives in and continues “Our bargain.” 

Neil only takes a moment to understand this time and smirks “Your something.” 

“Anything,” Andrew corrects before he can stop himself. 

Neil’s smile grows, probably as he remembers the exact terms were as Andrew stated. He promised Andrew  _ anything. _

_ Anything.  _

“Same difference,” Neil shrugs jokingly, but Andrew thinks he’s kidding. There’s a big difference. 

Anything is  _ anything.  _

When Andrew doesn’t say anything else, Neil prompts again. 

“So?”

And Andrew only takes a minute to get out what he wants to say, and it’s far less than he wants to say but far more than he can already handle. 

“Stay.”

Neil’s eyebrows furrow, if only a little, and though Andrew has never over-talked a day in his life, that one word was the catalyst that set off the reaction. 

“Do not move. Don’t—” he’s frustrating himself with the way he sounds and the way he can’t seem to say more than simple phrases and words in his sensitive of a position in the conversation. “Stay, here, in your apartment. Don’t move.”

Neil for all his constant motion seems to be still as a painting on Andrew’s floor. King is still swatting away at the crumpled “Welcome Neil” notice, but neither of them have looked over. 

Neil lets out a breath to start speaking “Andre—”

“Anything,” Andrew repeats before Neil can finally bring it all crashing down. “You promised anything if I went to a bar with your idiot friends, and I did.” He says it again, a little firmer, “I  _ did, I went,  _ and” he feels all disjointed again as he tries and fails to make it seem like a fair trade. He  _ knows  _ it’s not a fair trade. Neil asked for one night, Andrew is asking for at least another 6 months, and that’s only measuring time. It’s not as simple as that. “Anything, that’s,” he lets out the breath his few sentences had racked up, “that’s what I’m asking,” he finished. 

_ That’s what I want,  _ he might as well have said, because he knows that’s what it sounded like, and he knows that’s how Neil heard it. 

Neil schools any sort of reaction to that off his face before he startles Andrew, and Andrew blanches at the way Neil can tell he's vulnerable right now, and is keeping himself in check to balance them out. It’s despicable, it’s admirable, it’s  _ Neil.  _

“Andrew,” Neil starts again, and Andrew lets him this time. He said his piece, if Neil still left, he still left. Andrew would never make this mistake again. 

Neil smiles though, his private smile, the least aggressive one he owns. It’s shy, almost, and Andrew can’t tell if he wishes Neil had just laughed at him and left instead of feeling seemingly embarrassed for him. 

But he says, “I already re-signed the lease.” 

“What.”

“I re-signed the lease already. I’m staying,” his smile only grows as he no doubt watches the way Andrew visibly stills. 

“You’re staying,” he repeats, just to be sure.

“Yes.” He laughs then, “now, what were you thinking for dinner? I’m kind of craving greek.”

Andrew tells Neil it’s way too early to consider what they’re eating for dinner and tries not to get stuck on the fact that he can enjoy this dinner without thinking it’ll be their last. And he can enjoy this afternoon without worrying when Neil is going to tell him he’s leaving forever. He can enjoy looking at Neil and not having to remember every detail of every second, because though Neil has work tomorrow, he’ll come  _ back, and stay,  _ and for longer than just dinner. 

So they fall into their routine again, and it was as easy as if they’d never left it, and when Neil walks by Andrew to go downstairs and pay their delivery driver, he grips Neil’s sleeve and asks “ _ yes or no,”  _ and he swears the world could begin and end with Neil’s mouth back on his. 

And it’s only when the weather continues getting warmer and May is beginning to look more like June that Andrew brings it up, again, to ask Neil a question. One that he’d been wrestling with since Neil told him he was staying. 

They’d been watching from the window as new tenants unloaded boxes from trucks and into the building as Claire enthusiastically greeted them. It was a good enough reminder to the fact that none of them would be moving into Neil’s apartment, because he  _ stayed.  _

“Why?” Andrew asked, looking from the ground to Neil’s tanned face. 

“Why stay?” Neil responded, because of course he knew what Andrew was asking him. 

Andrew stared back as Neil squinted his blue eyes from direct sunlight he always seemed to be in these days. It was like the sun had nowhere else to shine but on Neil, summer was just beginning and Andrew couldn’t stop seeing it. A spotlight on Neil wherever he went. 

Neil smiled, genuinely, “I finally have a good reason to stay in one place.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all the support!! It means a lot :) this is the first chaptered fic I ever wrote and Im proud of it!! I'm still going crazy at home during quarantine and I have like 5 new fic ideas so keep an eye on my account ;) Thank you again everyone! <3

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading :)) Hope you liked it! Ill be back soon
> 
> Also, check out my other andreil fic set in the cannon universe called "unfriendly faces" <3


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